Pitman's Pathetic geology

[Glenn Morton]

Sean Pitman, M.D. has posted a page on the
internet
http://naturalselection.0catch.com/Files/The%20Ge
ologic%20Column.html which purports to disprove
the geologic column and modern geology. Lance
Murata called my attention to this page and I
thought that I would make a rare visit to T.O.
and comment on the sad science seen in Dr.
Pitman's work. It is sad that a guy as smart as Pitman would speak and write
about things with which he has had absolutely no experience. His lack of
geologic knowledge clearly shows in what he wrote. Sadly, his religion
requires a global flood and he will have to have it regardless of the
evidence before his eyes.

The > parts are from his web page cited above.

> One of the very foundations of evolution
>and popular science today is the "geologic
>column." This column is made up of layers of
>sedimentary rock and is supposed to have formed
>over millions and even billions of years.

This is historically absolutely false. The geologic column was set up by
creationist in the first half of the 19th century. None of these guys
believed in evolution.

"Even Charles Lyell (in his first edition of Principles of Geology) was
initially unchecked in his enthusiasm for a flood origin of this residue,
although he preferred to attribute the erratic boulders to debris dropped
from icebergs set afloat by the rapidly rising ocean." ~ William Ryan and
Walter Pitman, Noah's Flood, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998), p.56

Here are quotes from Lyell who was actually arguing for Noah's flood. He
believed it was local but if required to believe it to be a global event
would have put it into the supernatural realm. Lyell writes:

"The great cavity of western Asia is 18,000 square leagues in area, and is
occupied by a considerable population. The lowest parts, surrounding the
Caspian Sea, are 300 feet below the level of the Euxine, --here, therefore,
the diluvial waters might overflow the summits of hills rising 300 feet
above the level of the plain; and if depressions still more profound existed
at any former time in Asia, the tops of still loftier mountains may have
been covered by a flood." Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, edited by
James Secord, (New York: Penguin Classics, 1997), p. 432
**
Noah's flood
"But we agree with Dr. Fleming, that in the narrative of Moses there are no
terms employed that indicate the impetuous rushing of the waters, either as
they rose or when they retreated, upon the restraining of the rain and the
passing of a wind over the earth. On the contrary, the olive-branch, brought
back by the dove, seems as clear an indication to us that the vegetation was
not destroyed, as it was then to Noah that the dry land was about to
appear." Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, edited by James Secord, (New
York: Penguin Classics, 1997), p. 433
**
Noah's flood
"The same objection may have presented itself when we quoted, with so much
respect, the opinion of a distinguished botanist, that some living specimens
of the Baobab tree of Africa, or the Taxodium of Mexico, may be five
thousand years old. "Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, edited by James
Secord, (New York: Penguin Classics, 1997), p. 433
**
"For our own part, we have always considered the flood, if we are required
to admit its universality in the strictest sense of the term, as a
preternatural event far beyond the reach of philosophical ;inquiry, whether
as to the secondary causes employed to produce it, or the effects most
likely to result from it. At the same time, it is evident that they who are
desirous of pointing out the coincidence of geological phenomena with the
occurrence of such a general catastrophe, must neglect no one of the
circumstances enumerated in the Mosaic history, least of all so remarkable a
fact as that the olive remained standing while the waters were abating."
Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, edited by James Secord, (New York:
Penguin Classics, 1997), p. 434

This
>column can be found generally over the entire
>globe, to include the great mountains such as Mt.
>Everest.

This statement is false. Parts of the geologic column are found over most of
the earth, but not all the earth has sedimentary rocks. The Canadian shield
has no sedimentary cover. Neither does much of the Scottish Highlands where
I now live. The Grand Canyon area only has a partial column. And Mount
Everest is topped by Mississipian crinoidal limestones and thus does not
have any of the column above the Carboniferous on it.
http://www.21cep.com/nepal/npgeo.htm Pitman should check out his facts
before he writes.

> As one looks at the geologic column, it is
>obvious that the contact zones, between the
>various layers, are universally very flat. The
>layers can extend over thousands of square miles
>and yet the contact zones remain as flat and
>parallel as if sheets of glass were laid on top
>of each other. By flat, I mean that they are
>flat relative to each other at their contact
>zones (where they touch each other), and yet they
>may be at an angle relative to other surrounding
>landmarks. However, each layer is supposed to
>have formed over thousands if not millions of
>years. Would it be logical to assume that there
>should be some weathering of each of these layers
>over that amount of time?

Dr. Pitman should get his eyes out of his medical books and look at some
geology. I would point him to several pages on my website which show seismic
data showing exactly what he is asking for. I would suggest starting at
http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/seismic.htm where you can see
channels meandering between the layers-surely evidence of erosion and time.
You can also see overthrusts and other things you say don't exist.

But, this weathering
>is strangely lacking.1 Just about all the layers
>have un-weathered "flat" contact zones. This is
>rather odd, especially considering the fact that
>the current weathering rate for the continents of
>today is "at the very least 6cm/thousand years
>for the continental shelves". 2 This means that
>in less than 10 million years, the entire
>continental shelves of today would be washed into
>the oceans. But, what about rising mountain
>ranges? The current rate of the rise of some of
>the mountain ranges in the world is 100cm/1000
>years.2 Even with the fact that weathering is
>greater on mountains (>20cm/1000 years), 2 over
>the course of millions of years, the mountains
>would seem to be much taller than they are today.
>Even if not, they should at least be more
>weathered looking should they not?

No. That is like asking how much time will it take to get to LA on a cross
country trip and when given the answer assume that that is how long you have
traveled. Logically it is fallacious. The mountains would have had more
sediment on them but they might have been shorter because of isostasy and
collisional underthrusting of crust. See
http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/erosion.htm
for some explanation.

However, even
>on the tallest mountains, the geologic column
>remains without having been weathered away. How
>did this column avoid being weathered away over
>the course of millions of years that it
>supposedly represents? And yet, it has not been
>weathered away. With all this current weathering
>going on that obviously distorts and erases many
>areas of the exposed geologic column, why do we
>not see this same sort of distortion below the
>surface? Look at the pictures of the Grand
>Canyon in this chapter and notice the crisp
>parallel lines between each layer and then notice
>the very uneven and jagged surface of the topmost
>areas of the canyon caused by erosion over a
>relatively short time.

Look at the jagged layers in several of the pictures at
http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/seismic1.htm

Notice that this erosion
>has erased many areas in the column all together,
>never to be restored.

If erosion has erased parts of the column, you can't at the same time state
as you do above that the column exists all over the world. When writing it
is advisable to remember what one writes in the previous paragraph.

This same sort of erosion
>should be evident in lower layers as well should
>it not? Many claim that there are evidences of
>erosion in lower layers, evidences of rivers,
>streams, rain, etc. However, these are generally
>contained within a single given geologic layer
>and do not affect underlying or overlying layers.

See the channel
http://www.searchanddiscovery.com/documents/geophysical/Abbott/images/fig08.
jpg

It affects the underlying layers.
See the river channel at http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/age.htm

>at least not on the scale of damage that we now
>see erosion causing. Just look at the pictures.
>No one can help but note the uniformity and
>evenness of these layers throughout the geologic
>column as compared with what we see erosion
>currently doing today. Erosion causes
>comparatively rapid non-uniformity and
>unevenness. We simply do not see this sort of
>expected erosion happening in the geologic
>column.

Yeah, look at the pictures of the seismic. Look at
http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/grandcanyon.htm
to see a picture of a buried canyon with a dendritic drainage pattern. This
is from seismic data.

>The Coconino Sand Dunes
>
>
>However, what about those ancient desert sand
>dune layers in the Grand Canyon? The popular
>science of today declares that the Coconino
>Sandstone layer (third from the top) used to be
>an ancient desert formed over eons of time. The
>Coconino Sandstone layer is quite interesting
>indeed. It averages 96 meters in thickness
>(315ft.) and covers an area of 200,000 sq. miles.
>The total volume of sand is estimates to be
>approximately 10,000 cubic miles.14 The sand
>grains themselves are composed almost entirely of
>quartz, just like most desert sand is. Also,
>just like in modern deserts, the Coconino
>Sandstone has inclined "cross bedding" in it.
>Cross bedding in sand dunes are areas were sand
>from one dune are covered by sand from another
>dune in a different orientation (different
>incline). The Coconino Sandstone is filled with
>these cross beds just like desert dunes frozen in
>time.15 The sand grains themselves show
>microscopic features of long exposure in dry
>"desert" conditions. These features include
>"frosting" and "pitting" on the surface of the
>individual grains of sand. This similarity
>between Coconino Sandstone and modern desert sand
>has strengthened the belief that an ancient
>desert formed the Coconino Sandstone.16 Then
>comes the clenching argument: All throughout the
>sandstone are preserved footprints of vertebrates
>such as lizards or other similar reptilian
>creatures. These footprints are located on the
>preserved surfaces of the dunes and are believed
>to have been covered by the shifting dune sand
>and thus preserved for all time.17 Given all of
>these facts, it seems obvious that the Coconino
>Sandstone is in fact a preservation of a very
>large and ancient desert.

>Many things appear to be a certain way until a
>closer observation is made. Consider the fact
>that the Coconino Sandstone has preserved crisp
>footprints in delicate detail. Does this happen
>in dry desert sand? When a lizard walks or runs
>over dry sand, what happens? Footprint
>impressions are made, but nothing near the detail
>and crispness that has been preserved in the
>Coconino Sandstone. Now, consider the likelihood
>that shifting sand will preserve very small and
>delicate footprints made in dry sand. This seems
>a bit hard to imagine. Another item of interest
>that is usually never mentioned in the literature
>is that the vast majority of the Coconino tracks
>all head uphill.18 Evidently the lizards of
>ancient deserts did not like going downhill much
>at all. Often tracks start and stop suddenly
>without evidence of sand-shift or disturbance.
>like the creature suddenly vanished into thin air
>(or swam off in the water). The facts just do
>not seem to fit the theory. Studies to test
>other ideas have shown that the Coconino tracks
>are much more consistent with underwater
>formation in a heavy current.18, 19, 20

Brand never explains the tracks of insects and spiders on the Coconino. Such
footprints are consistent with a desert environment but not with an
underwater environment.

"Brady (1939, 1947) carried out a series of experiments with small
vertebrates and invertebrates and pointed out similarities between the
fossil traces and those formed by modern scorpions, millipedes, and isopods.
In addition, he found that in wet or slightly moist sand, no trace was left
by the scorpions he was working with but that they made impressions in the
dry sand."
~ Larry T. Middleton, David K. Elliott, and Michael Morales, "Coconino
Sandstone," in S. S. Buess and M. Morales, Grand Canyon Geology, (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1990), p.185
**
"Brady (in a series of publications from 1939 to 1961 continued work on
these tracks. He described new traces, provided insights into the
conditions necessary for their formation, and identified the trace-formers.
He pointed out (1939,1947) that Paleohelcura trails were very like those
formed by the modern scorpion (Centruoides) in dry sand when the temperature
was about 60oF (15oC). He also showed, however, that with variations in
temperature and surface conditions, the same animal could leave a variety of
traces - sometimes impressing two, three, or four feet on each side leaving
no tail drag, an intermittent one, or a complete impression of the tail.
Based on this information, he showed that a variety of trails in the
Coconino Sandstone were simply variations on Paleohelcura. It is clear from
this work that two of the ichnogenera described by Gilmore (1926),
Trivestiga and Mesichnium, represent variations on Paleohelcura and do not
merit the status of separate ichnogenera." ~ Larry T. Middleton, David K.
Elliott, and Michael Morales, "Coconino Sandstone," in S. S. Buess and M.
Morales, Grand Canyon Geology, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990),
p.189-190

Nor can the underwater hypothesis explain the rain-drop impressions on the
beds of the Coconino. If you haven't noticed, it doesn't rain under water!

"Primary sedimentary structures in the Coconino Sandstone include small- to
large-scale (up to 66-feet[20-m] thick} planar tabular and planar wedge
cross stratification, ripple marks and raindrop impressions." ~ Larry T.
Middleton, David K. Elliott, and Michael Morales, "Coconino Sandstone," in
S. S. Buess and M. Morales, Grand Canyon Geology, (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1990), p.193

And consider this data, which you were not taught at Loma Linda.

"A final argument against the interpretation of a subaqueous origin for
Laoporus tracks is that they are associated with many invertebrate traces
that have been attributed to spiders and scorpions. Two of the better known
invertebrate traces found in the Coconino Sandstone are Octopodichnus
('eight-footed [p. 43] trace') and Paleohelcura ('ancient wound or mark').
Most ichnologists agree that both traces were made by arthropods of some
type, but interpretations range from spiders to scorpions to crustaceans.
"In a series of papers published from 1939 to 1961, Lionel F. Brady
undertook a series of experiments with small living arthropods. He
determined that Paleohelcura tracks are very similar to those made by living
scorpions and that Octopodichnus might also be attributed to a scorpion-like
animal. Brady also found tat the same scorpions made different traces at
different temperatures, depending on whether they were torpid or warmed up.
Raymond Alf, founder of the museum in Claremont that now bears his name,
continued this tradition of experimentation with living arthropods. In 1968
he showed that certain traces from the Coconino Sandstone were very similar
to those produced by large tarantula spiders. It is interesting to not that
Alf overlooked or at least failed to cite Brady's work and therefore did not
comment on the similarity between the spider tracks and Octopodichnusus"
"Recently, Christa Sadler has found these same arthropod traces in eolian
deposits beyond the Coconino Sandstone. She has described Octopodichnus and
[p. 44] Paleohelcura from the De Chelly Sandstone. This formation is another
Permian deposit, famous for forming the towering features of Arizona's
Monument Valley....As this book was going to press, we are undertaking a
study of three new vertebrate tracksites in the De Chelly Sandstone that
contain Laoporus-like tracks and abundant Octopodichnus at dozens of
different levels." ~ M. Lockley and Adrian P. Hunt, Dinosaur Tracks, (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1995), p. 40-44
**
"This interpretation appears to be consistent with the inference that the
environment was a desert. The scorpion-like and spider-like traces also
support this interpretation. But what did the vertebrates that made the
Laoporus tracks eat?
"One possible answer may be found in an interesting slab recovered from the
Coconino Sandstone in Arizona, by Jon Kramer. This specimen, now in the
Minnesota Science Museum, shows the trackway of a large invertebrate that
ends abruptly at the point where a vertebrate trackway crosses the slab. It
is tempting to interpret the termination of this trail as evidence that the
vertebrate ate the hapless invertebrate. If this interpretation is correct,
then this specimen could be cited as evidence that desert-dwelling
vertebrates actually fed on some of the invertebrates responsible for making
traces in the Coconino Sandstone." ~ M. Lockley and Adrian P. Hunt, Dinosaur
Tracks, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), p. 48-49

>
>The Coconino sand dunes themselves also are not
>like the sand dunes of modern deserts. They have
>an average slope angle of 25° while the average
>slope angle of dry sand is 30-34° (the "resting"
>angle of dry sand).21 Sand dunes formed by
>underwater currents do not have as high an
>average slope angle as desert dunes and do not
>have "avalanche" faces as commonly as deserts
>dunes do.
>
>Still what explanation can be given for the
>microscopic pitting and frosting of the grains of
>sand? It turns out that desert sand is not the
>only sand that can be pitted and frosted. The
>chemical process of sand cementation in the
>forming of sandstone can also cause pitting and
>frosting.22
>
>So, it appears that the evidence best support
>underwater formation of the Coconino Sandstone.
>Ocean currents can in fact make very pure quartz
>sand dunes with specific characteristics that
>match the dunes in the Coconino Sandstone.23

There should be the chemical glauconite if this were underwater. There is no
glauconite in the Coconino.

>Turbodites and Water Sorting
>
>
>There are some other interesting things to note
>about the geologic column. Many of its layers,
>wherever they are found in the world, are sorted
>with the courser material on the bottom and the
>finer material on the top of that individual
>layer (Except in the case of underwater "slumps"
>where the material is sorted fine to course). 2
>Does this sorting make sense to have happened
>over millions of years? Sorting like this does
>not take place today except in specific
>circumstances. This kind of sorting only occurs
>naturally in water, and specifically in
>underwater mudslides called turbodites. I think
>it is interesting that much of the geologic
>column looks exactly like turboditic layering.3

Explain the Haymond turbidites. (By the way it is spelled
t-u-r-b-I-d-I-t-e-s). Such things show that you are not well versed in the
subject your are pontificating about.

Lets look at turbidites. My favorite is the Haymond beds of West Texas. Here
are the observations:

""Two thirds of the Haymond is composed of a repetitious alternation of
fine- and very fine-grained olive brown sandstone and black shale in beds
from a millimeter to 5 cm thick. The formation is estimated to have more
than 15,000 sandstone beds greater than 5 mm thick."" p. 87.
""Tool-mark casts (chiefly groove casts), flute casts and flute-lineation
casts are common current-formed sole marks. Trace fossils in the form of
sand-filled burrows are present on every sandstone sole, but nearly absent
within sandstone beds. ~ Earle F. McBride," "Stratigraphy and
Sedimentology of the Haymond Formation,"" in Earle F. McBride, Stratigraphy,
Sedimentary Structures and Origin of Flysch and Pre-Flysch Rocks, Marathon
Basin, Texas (Dallas: Dallas Geological Society, 1969), p. 87-88

Several items can be deduced from these observations.

1. It is obvious that the burrowers prefer to burrow into the shale rather
the sand.

2. The burrows in the shale were present when the sand was deposited. Why?
because the sand filled the hole (burrow).

3. There were few burrows in the sand as there are no fingers of shale
poking down into the sand as there are sand fingers poking down into the
shale.

Lets try to explain this in a one year flood. Give each shale layer 1 day
for recolonization of burrowers the deposit would require 41 years to be
deposited. But that is a real problem. The Haymond bed is 1300 m thick and
only represents a small part of the entire geologic column. All the
fossiliferous sediments in this area are 5000 m in thickness. To do the
entire column in one year requires 1300/5000*365=95 days for the time over
which the Haymond must be deposited. This means that 157 sand/shale couplets
per day must be deposited. That means that the burrowers must repopulate
the shale 157 times per day, dig holes, be buried, then survive the burial
to dig again another 156 times that day.

We know that the burrowers who were buried did not survive. If they had,
they would have had to dig up through the sand to escape their entombment.
There are no burrows going up through the sand. And if there had been these
burrows, there should be little circular piles of sand with a central crater
pocking the entire upper surface of the sand. We don't see these. If they
escaped, it should look like:

sand
------------- --------------------
shale | s |
| a |
| n |
| d |
----

- -
-------- - - ----------------
-
sand
-------- ------------------
shale | s |
| a |
| n |
| d |
----

------------------------------------

As it is, we see this, which indicates no escape of the burrowers:

sand
------------- --------------------
shale | s |
| a |
| n |
| d |
----

-------------------------------

sand
-------- ------------------
shale | s |
| a |
| n |
| d |
----

------------------------------------

This is an indication of lots of time between the deposition of the sand and
the digging of the burrows. It simply isn't credible to have these burrowers
dig burrows at a rate required by the Noah's flood viewpoint.

>
>
>
>
>Non-Conformities
>
>
>Turbodites are not the only problem. There are
>also so called "non-conformities" or "missing
>layers" located within the geologic column.
>These layers should be there if in fact they
>supposedly formed all over the earth over
>millions of years, but they simply are not.

No geologist believes that every single formation formed everywhere over the
entire earth.

Not
>even a trace of them in some areas where they are
>quite thick in other areas. One explanation is
>that certain layers formed in the ancient oceans
>and not on the continents. So, when these ocean
>sediments were upthrusted the newly formed land
>had layers that were not present in the rest of
>the land. The problem with this explanation is
>that there are many missing sediments that
>contain land animal fossils.

How can missing sediments contain anything, much less land animal fossils?
If the sediments are missing, they are MISSING.

>The common explanation is that with shifting
>continental shelves, a lot of over and
>underthrusting of crustal layers occurred where
>some layers would slide over other layers. If
>this were the case, then some columns should have
>multiple copies of the same layers instead of
>just a mixed up order. To my knowledge, this is
>not generally observed.

You are conflating several issues. There are overthrusts and in mountainous
areas you can see them. One example is the poor picture I took of a poster
session at a recent conference.
http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/overthrust1.jpg

There are multiple 'copies of the same layers' We drill oil wells through
them and find the same layer multiple times depending upon the geometry of
the thrust.

>Volcanic activity adds yet another twist. Each
>eruption has a chemical signature. It is known
>that a volcanic eruption leaves a specific
>chemical fingerprint in its sedimentary layer.
>>From the study of active volcanoes, this
>fingerprint is quite specific. If the same
>volcano erupts at least 3 months later, it will
>have a detectable difference in its fingerprint.
>(4, 5) Many of the sedimentary layers in the
>geologic column have volcanic sediment in them.
>It is very interesting to note that in some
>places, where there are over 20 layers containing
>volcanic sediment, there may be only three to
>four different volcanic "fingerprints" or
>"signatures" among all the layers.4 How can this
>be when each layer supposedly took thousands or
>millions of years to create? Every layer should
>obviously have at least one unique "signature" if
>not many different signatures. But, this does
>not happen. In fact, it gets even more
>interesting. Many times, the signature in the
>bottom layer will be exactly the same as the
>signature found in the top layer.4

I have never heard that the chemical signature must change in a volcano. I
would suggest that your reference 4 (Veith, W. J., Amazing Discoveries Video
Series, 2000. ) is not a scientific source of information. They are wrong.

>
>
>
>
>Sedimentation of Great Lakes and River Deltas
>
>
>There is yet another curious fact that we see
>today. We have on each continent "great lakes"
>or bodies of water being fed by rivers or
>streams. Each of these rivers and streams brings
>sediment that slowing fills up the lake. The
>rate of sedimentary deposit can be calculated and
>it is fairly rapid. It is so rapid that at the
>current rates, there should be no great lakes on
>any continent, because it would take less than a
>million years to fill them all up.4

Once again this shows the silliness of depending upon non-scientific sources
for information. Let's assume this guy is correct that it will take less
than a million years for the Great Lakes to fill. Big deal. Have you asked
yourself the proper question which is how much sediment is in the bottom of
the lakes? That is what will tell you how old it is, not how long it takes
to fill it up.

Take it one
>step further and one could estimate the ages of
>the great rivers of today. For example, the
>sedimentary rates are known for those such as the
>Mississippi and the Nile deltas. At the current
>rates of deposit, in much less than 10 million
>years, the entire Gulf of Mexico would be filled
>with the Mississippi Delta and the entire
>Mediterranean Sea would be filled with the Nile's
>delta.

Cow-patties on this. See
http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/erosion.htm
Cow-patties cow patties and buffalo chips.

In fact, by today's calculations of their
>deltas, neither river can be older than 5,000
>years.6

Are you aware that the Missisippi River delta was once in southern
Illinois? The river was there 200+ million years ago. You better see that
erosion.htm page.

Every river's age can be estimated in
>this way, roughly of course, but obviously within
>the limits of thousands and not millions of
>years. Even the Colorado in the Grand Canyon
>does not seem to be very old at all when you look
>at its delta even though it supposedly carved the
>canyon over a much greater period of time.
>Niagara Falls has been calculated to only be a
>few thousand years old as well, and not even
>close to a million years old based on erosion
>rates.7

Buffalo chips on this also. Part of the ancestral Colorado river was
deposited in California, not down in Baha California. The river changed its
course relatively recently. The river is old.

"Upper Paleocene to Middle Miocene fluvial-deltaic rocks in
the Los Angeles and Ventura basins were deposited by a Colorado
paleoriver prior to 300 km of dextral displacement on the San
Andreas fault. During the late Miocene, movement on the fault
and associated rifting in the Salton trough rerouted the
paleoriver into the proto-Gulf of California." ~ Jeffrey L.
Howard, "Paleocene to Holocene Paleodeltas of Ancestral Colorado
River Offset by the San Andreas Fault System, Southern
California," Geology, 24:9(Sept. 1996):783-786, p. 783

>
>Clastic Dikes
>
>
>
>
>In many places throughout the geologic column,
>there are what are called "clastic dikes". A
>clastic dike is where a layer of sediment beneath
>another layer was pushed up in spikes through the
>layers above it like "toothpaste." This only
>happens in modern flooding and mudslides if the
>lower mud layer was still soft and recently
>deposited just before layers were added on top of
>it. The extreme pressure of sedimentary layering
>on top of a soft layer causes the soft layer to
>"squirt up" at intervals through the layers above
>it.8 None of this could possibly happen if the
>layers were laid down over millions of years.
>Why not? Because in a relatively short time,
>sedimentary layers turn to rock and solid rock
>does not "squirt" regardless of the pressure
>applied to it. It may fracture under pressure,
>but it does not flow.

This time it is bullshit. Rocks often don't harden until they have been
buried under several thousand feet of sediment. I drilled a well in Lee Co.
Texas to a depth of 3300 feet. The sand which produced the oil is like a
fine beach sand and I have a jar of that sand in my office. It is not hard,
it is quite like-well, beach sand. You simply make things up don't you?

As to clastic dykes see
http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/clasdyke.htm
>
>So, what scenario does the current worldwide
>geologic column fit the best. a slow and ancient
>formation or a recent and rapid formation?

Slow ancient formation for anyone who has actually done field work. How much
field work in geology did you do getting your M.D.?

[John Harshman]

In article <amansn$t4e$1...@helle.btinternet.com>,
"Glenn Morton" <glenn....@btinternet.com> wrote:

> Sean Pitman, M.D. has posted a page on the
> internet
> http://naturalselection.0catch.com/Files/The%20Ge
> ologic%20Column.html which purports to disprove
> the geologic column and modern geology. Lance
> Murata called my attention to this page and I
> thought that I would make a rare visit to T.O.
> and comment on the sad science seen in Dr.
> Pitman's work. It is sad that a guy as smart as Pitman would speak and write
> about things with which he has had absolutely no experience. His lack of
> geologic knowledge clearly shows in what he wrote. Sadly, his religion
> requires a global flood and he will have to have it regardless of the
> evidence before his eyes.

[snips]

This little bit caught my eye:

>
> > As one looks at the geologic column, it is
> >obvious that the contact zones, between the
> >various layers, are universally very flat. The
> >layers can extend over thousands of square miles
> >and yet the contact zones remain as flat and
> >parallel as if sheets of glass were laid on top
> >of each other. By flat, I mean that they are
> >flat relative to each other at their contact
> >zones (where they touch each other), and yet they
> >may be at an angle relative to other surrounding
> >landmarks. However, each layer is supposed to
> >have formed over thousands if not millions of
> >years. Would it be logical to assume that there
> >should be some weathering of each of these layers
> >over that amount of time?

Let's forget the differences between depositional and erosional settings
for now. Just concentrate on the initial claim. Has Dr. Sean ever heard
the term "angular unconformity"? I wouldn't be surprised if he hadn't.
I've never seen a creationist of any sort mention angular
unconformities, much less attempt to explain them.

Perhaps Dr. Sean would like to take this opportunity to explain angular
unconformities in a Flood geology context. Or perhaps he wouldn't.

--

*Note the obvious spam-defeating modification
to my address if you reply by email.

[Bigdakine]

>Subject: Re: Pitman's Pathetic geology
>From: John Harshman harshman....@sjm.infi.net
>Date: 9/18/02 12:51 PM Hawaiian Standard Time
>Message-id:
><harshman.diespamdie-...@news.infinet.mindspring.com>

I think Dr. Sean packed his bags a while ago. This way he can at least pretend
not to any better.

Stuart
Dr. Stuart A. Weinstein
Ewa Beach Institute of Tectonics
"To err is human, but to really foul things up
requires a creationist"

[Glenn Morton]

John Harshman <harshman....@sjm.infi.net> wrote in message
news:harshman.diespamdie-...@news.infinet.mindspring.com..
.

> Let's forget the differences between depositional and erosional settings
> for now. Just concentrate on the initial claim. Has Dr. Sean ever heard
> the term "angular unconformity"? I wouldn't be surprised if he hadn't.
> I've never seen a creationist of any sort mention angular
> unconformities, much less attempt to explain them.
>
> Perhaps Dr. Sean would like to take this opportunity to explain angular
> unconformities in a Flood geology context. Or perhaps he wouldn't

There are several examples of angular unconformities on my web page.

[Sean Pitman M.D.]

Glenn Morton Thanks again for the critique. I found it very
interesting and even logical. I even enjoyed the abrasive language
and sarcasm. Really, you did make some excellent points, that even I
could understand. As far as what I can understand so far, I will
change my thinking and writing accordingly. After all, this is not my
area of expertise. However, from my limited background in geology, I
wrote concerning my honest questions. You may have all the answers.
Apparently you do. You seem very wise indeed.  
However, the most significant question I have concerning the "vast
ages" of the geologic column, you did not clearly answer. At least I
continue to be "confused" even after reading your links to your
papers. That is, you did not explain, to my understanding at least (I
may be really slow here, but bear with me), why the vast majority of
the layers in the column are extremely flat relative to each other
without significant weathering at their contact zones. True, there do
seem to be some examples of limited erosion to include rivers that may
even affect other layers, but overall, the weathering of the various
layers does not appear to be as widespread as one would expect given
the effects of current erosion forces on exposed geologic surfaces.
You describe some evidence of rain, some rivers, some seismic
activity, but still, this doesn't seem to cause all that much general
weathering in these layers. Why aren't more uneven surfaces, to
include hills, valleys, canyons, rivers, and generally evidence of the
action of wind and rain, preserved in the geologic column? Why are
the contact zones generally so very flat? I personally sat down with
an evolutionary geologist and asked him why the contact zones between
various geologic layers were generally so crisp and why erosion had
not removed entire sections of such layers or preserved the
undulations of prior surfaces. He explained that subsequent
catastrophic events leveled the previously uneven surface of the lower
layer(s). When pressed to explain exactly how this could happen
since turbidites do not erode or significantly level uneven surfaces,
he said that many of the layers were formed underwater where erosion
problems are not as significant as they are on exposed land surfaces.
But not all of the layers are thought to have been constantly
protected by overlying water. Even the ones that are thought to
primarily represent marine deposits seem too uniform over too large an
area to represent such long ages. I pressed him further to explain
the general uniformity and crispness of the contact zones of even the
layers exposed to the forces of wind and rain over millions of years.
He finally said that no one really knew the answer to this question
and that this was a problem, but no one really thinks it is
significant. Well, for me it is significant because I cannot
understand it using a paradigm of punctuated formation that took
hundreds of millions of years. I do not see enough erosion of the
layers. I have talked to several geologists and no one has yet given
me a clear explanation for the crisp contact zones and the general
uniform evenness of the various layers within the geologic column.
Oh, by the way, I do not believe, nor do I think most "creationists"
believe that the entire column was formed in less than one year or by
a single event such as a "global flood." I think that the entire
column appears to have been formed "relatively" quickly taking perhaps
thousands of years to form, but not millions. I simply do not see
enough erosion of the layers to represent millions of years. Some of
it seems to me to have been formed extremely quickly, but by no means
all of it. Even evolutionary geologists think that the majority of
the layers within the geologic column were formed by catastrophic
events. Of course it is believed that these events were separated by
very long periods of relative calm. I just don't see the erosive
evidence to back up such long separation times between the events.
Your argument concerning river formation and river deltas seems pretty
reasonable to me. My understanding on this issue is admittedly from
limited and biased sources, all in favor of the rapid formation of the
geologic column. For now, the evidence, as you present it, seems to
make some pretty good sense. I will have to study this particular
issue in more detail.  
As far as describing the extent of the geologic column, I did not
intend to be indicating that the geologic column covered every square
inch of the globe. Obviously it does not. By saying that it
"generally" covered the entire globe, I did not mean that it covered
the whole globe completely but that it could in fact be found all over
it "generally"… to include such places as the Mountains of Everest.
Also, I did not mean to indicate that all of the layers of the
geologic column existed all over the globe or even in any one
particular place, although, as you say, there may be several places
where much or all of it does exist. The fact remains however that
many of the greatest mountains in the world have at least some portion
of the geologic column on top of them. This seems strange to me
considering that erosion rates are higher on mountains. How could
mountains, that have withstood hundreds of millions of years of
erosion, still be covered by even a small portion of the relatively
soft geologic column that represents a long ago time when this
mountain was low enough to experience a submarine environment? This
question also holds for the relatively thin layers of the geologic
column generally spread out over the continental shelves. The
continental shelves may rise when overlying mass is removed, like a
barge rising in the water when cargo is removed, but how are the
relatively thin layers of the geologic column preserved from erosion?
By saying that it only takes 10-15 million years to erode away the
entire continental shelf, I am not saying that they will erode below
sea level in this time. They may rise and keep rising for all I know.
But, the curious problem for me is that this erosion can remove so
much mass from the continental shelves and yet leave the most
superficial layers (ie: the geologic column) relatively intact. How
is this done? You say that granite is extremely hard and probably
weathers away by less than 1 inch per thousand years. That seems
reasonable, but the sedimentary nature of the layers within the
geologic column do not seem to be this sturdy. Their erosion rate
should be much higher than that of granite, should it not? How then
are they maintained or preserved over the course of hundreds of
millions of years? Shouldn't the surfaces of the granites have been
wiped clean, like so much dried mud on your driveway, multiple times
over the course of several hundred million years? Or, does sediment
deposition surpass sediment erosion? I do have some other "aside"
comments concerning some of your other critiques. I wrote: >One of the

very foundations of evolution>and popular science today is the
"geologic
>column."  This column is made up of layers of>sedimentary rock and is
supposed to have formed
>over millions and even billions of years.

 You went off by saying that this is, "historically absolutely false."
You know as well as I do what I am talking about. I am not talking
about history here, but how modern evolutionary scientists view the
geologic column. Geology, fossils and the geologic column that
contains them, are a huge part of the modern theory of evolution.
Please, I get referred to the geologic column and the fossil record
all the time as some of the most solid evidence for the "truth" of
evolution in existence. Don't tell me that my statement is false when
the geologic column is obviously one of the biggest pillars of
evolution around. You also commented, "You can also see overthrusts
and other things you say don't exist."  I never said any such thing.
Overthrusts obviously exist. Sometimes they are rather huge, with
vast slabs that are hundreds of miles long and hundreds of feet thick
extending many miles over other layers. Funny thing is, I am told
that there doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence of sliding, gauging or
heat production from friction for many of these overthrusts. I find
that rather odd. Can you point me in the right direction on this one?
You also wrote, "If erosion has erased

parts of the column, you can't
at the same time state
as you do above that the column
exists all over the world.  When
writing it is advisable to
remember what one writes in the

previous paragraph." Again, you misunderstood my statement in a
couple of ways. First off, I don't believe that the column exists
over every spot on the globe, just a lot of spots. Secondly, you
missed my whole point. Consider a column 5 layers thick. If erosion
comes along and removes 90% of the top layer, 70% of the next layer,
50% of the next and so on, then, what will happen when the a sixth
catastrophic sedimentation event comes along? It will fill in the
eroded areas and preserve the erosion history of these layers.
However, the missing sections of these layers can never be replaced.
They are lost forever. You have shown a few examples of erosive
forces that are preserved within the column, such as rivers, but
compared to erosive forces that we have eroding the current surface
layers of the column, the erosive forces that you have described seem
relatively rare to me. A few rivers, a bit of rain, but generally the
layers remain uniform. The rivers could have been the result of a
rapid runoff with quick erosion, not necessarily present for millions
of years. You say that this river affects underlying levels, and this
does seem to be the case, but it is too isolated a case. There is not
enough evidence of supporting erosion in these layers to make this a
conclusive argument, from my limited perspective of course. I will
look more into it however. Your example of a canyon formation still
seems rather isolated. Are the surrounding contact zones of the layer
or layers that preserved this canyon crisp and flat without very much
evidence of weathering? It seems to me that fairly large canyons have
been formed, even in modern times, in a very rapid manner by quick
water runoff from a large body of water.  
I will have to further review your discussion and references
concerning the Coconino sand dunes. However, I do not understand how
such crisp vertebrate footprints, to include prints of toenails could
be preserved in dry sand as you suggest. Perhaps they could be
preserved in wet sand that has been exposed to air for a while, having
somewhat of a crusted surface. But, loose, dry sand, just doesn't
seem to be able to preserve such detailed footprints as are found in
the Coconino dunes. Also, shifting dry sands do not seem to be able
to preserve footprints either. I'm still pretty skeptical of your
take on this one, but I will look into it further. Your description of
turbidites (thanks for the spelling tip) and shale layering in the
Haymond beds of West Texas was very interesting indeed. I have a
couple of comments/questions for you however. First off, I do not
require that this area of the geologic column be formed by a single
catastrophic event. I am not saying that a single catastrophic event
made the entire geologic column or even that a single catastrophic
even made most of the column. I am perfectly open to multiple
catastrophes creating the column, just not with separations of
millions of years between catastrophes. Having said this, I have
other questions for you concerning your thoughts about the Haymond
beds.  
You said, "We know that the burrowers

who were buried did not survive. If
they had, they would have had to dig
up through the sand to escape their
entombment. There are no burrows going
up through the sand. And if there had
been these burrows, there should be little
circular piles of sand with a central
crater pocking the entire upper surface

of the sand. We don't see these." I know that some argue that these
burrows represent "escape" burrows. Not only creationist literature
calls them this. I have also read what you have written about this as
well. Let me pose a scenario for you though. Lets just assume that
these are escape burrows and that they did climb out the top of the
sand after it had swarmed in via turbiditic flow. Some of these
turbidites weren't very big. I mean, if what you say is true, the
layers put down by these sandy turbidites were only between one
millimeter and five centimeters thick. I know that in other areas the
sandy turbidites could be as thick as nine meters, but that is besides
the point. The point is that it is very difficult to kill a burrowing
creature (clam, worm, crab etc) in just one millimeter of sand. I
have covered up such creatures with sand and they quickly dig out.
But, you say, if they dug out, where are the preserved piles of sand
on the top of the sandy layers? The tops of these layers have
evidence of preserved current action and are wavy or undulating like
the sand in the ocean is when acted on by currents. I have seen
small, buried creatures dig out of sand under water in such areas of
current, and the little pile of sand that is made is quickly
obliterated. In just a few seconds you can't even tell where they
made their exit. I am surprised at this argument, because the answer
seems so obvious to me. But of course, you are the geologist and I am
not, so I suppose I must simply accept your argument? But really, I
just don't see the problem here.
Your calculation about the time for the formation of the Haymond beds
was also pretty interesting. Your equation, "1300/5000*365=95 days
for the time over which the Haymond must be deposited." Does not seem
to be an automatic default. First of, you wrote your equation wrong.
I'm sure you meant to write, "5000/1300*365=95." You assume by this
equations that the formation of the entire column required equal time
for each part. You also assume that all those who don't believe the
column is hundreds of millions of years old, must believe that it was
formed by a single catastrophic event, which is simply mistaken. You
also assume that there is simply no way for burrowing creatures to
escape 1mm of sand that "traps" them in their tunnels. Please... this
is almost funny. You never tried to bury these critters as a kid now
did you?

You went on to say, "No geologist believes

that every single formation formed
everywhere over the entire earth."   

I would not expect to find a single formation formed everywhere over
the entire earth, even with a global catastrophe, such as a global
flood.  It seems to me that such a global catastrophe would affect
different areas in different ways and make different kinds of
sedimentation.  Even if not and there was no single global
catastrophe, this still does not explain why the layers are so flat
and even without significant weathering in-between.  Even without a
single global event, they still do not seem to be hundreds of millions
of years old.  I am ok with their formation with many separate events
that were separated by relatively short gaps in time, but I am not
seeing the evidence for hundreds of millions of years.  Even so, there
are in fact very large areas that are covered by single layers.  Some
stretch a fair distance around the globe.  It seems like any kind of
catastrophe that could create any one of these monsters, such as might
have been the case following a giant meteor impact, could have
released enough energy to cause huge tidal waves to encircle most if
not then entire globe, maybe more than once?   
Your retort concerning sediment filling up the great lakes seems
pretty interesting. Are you saying that the amount of sediment in the
bottom of the lakes, divided by the amount of sediment that comes into
the lakes every year, is equal to many millions of years? I find this
hard to believe, but I will look into it further. Your stuff on
clastic dykes is also very interesting indeed. Honestly, this does
seem to make some sense to me, but I am not completely convinced yet.
Will have to look into it further. It seems that your hypothesis that
sand can remain liquefied for millions of years is based on an "a
priori" understanding in the "truth" of the old age of the geologic
column. Even so, I see your point. If sand can remain liquefied far
longer than other overlying sediments, then it would still be able to
squirt under pressure. But why do some of these clastic dykes have a
core that is formed of clay? How did the clay remain liquefied?  
Well, I will stop with these questions for now. I do appreciate your
time and effort in your reply. I'm not writing or challenging
evolution to convince or "convert" anyone to my way of thinking so
much as I am putting my ideas out there for others to challenge… for
my own benefit and knowledge. I have no burden to convince you or
anyone else of anything. That's not my job. I'm not one who thinks
it is "morally wrong" to believe in evolution. I wish to hear the
other side of the story, your side of the story, primarily for my own
benefit. You have in fact challenged me in a very good way. I am
very interested in your views and insights. I find them quite
interesting and reasonable. I am not yet converted to your point of
view, but even I can see, with my dull wit, that your position is
carefully considered and not at all irrational. Thanks again, Sean

[Sean Pitman M.D.]

of the lower layer(s). When pressed to explain exactly how this
could happen since turbidites do not erode or significantly level

>One of the very foundations of evolution
>and popular science today is the "geologic
>column." This column is made up of layers of
>sedimentary rock and is supposed to have formed
>over millions and even billions of years.

You went off by saying that this is, "historically absolutely false."
You know as well as I do what I am talking about. I am not talking
about history here, but how modern evolutionary scientists view the
geologic column. Geology, fossils and the geologic column that
contains them, are a huge part of the modern theory of evolution.
Please, I get referred to the geologic column and the fossil record
all the time as some of the most solid evidence for the "truth" of
evolution in existence. Don't tell me that my statement is false when
the geologic column is obviously one of the biggest pillars of
evolution around.

You also commented, "You can also see overthrusts and other things you
say don't exist."

I never said any such thing. Overthrusts obviously exist. Sometimes
they are rather huge, with vast slabs that are hundreds of miles long
and hundreds of feet thick extending many miles over other layers.
Funny thing is, I am told that there doesn't seem to be a lot of
evidence of sliding, gauging or heat production from friction for many
of these overthrusts. I find that rather odd. Can you point me in
the right direction on this one?

You also wrote, "If erosion has erased

parts of the column, you can't
at the same time state
as you do above that the column
exists all over the world. When
writing it is advisable to
remember what one writes in the
previous paragraph."

layering in the Haymond beds of West Texas was very interesting

indeed. I have a couple of comments/questions for you however. First
off, I do not require that this area of the geologic column be formed
by a single catastrophic event. I am not saying that a single
catastrophic event made the entire geologic column or even that a
single catastrophic even made most of the column. I am perfectly open
to multiple catastrophes creating the column, just not with
separations of millions of years between catastrophes. Having said
this, I have other questions for you concerning your thoughts about
the Haymond beds.

You said, "We know that the burrowers

who were buried did not survive. If
they had, they would have had to dig
up through the sand to escape their
entombment. There are no burrows going
up through the sand. And if there had
been these burrows, there should be little
circular piles of sand with a central
crater pocking the entire upper surface
of the sand. We don't see these."

I know that some argue that these burrows represent "escape" burrows.
Not only creationist literature calls them this. I have also read
what you have written about this as well. Let me pose a scenario for
you though. Lets just assume that these are escape burrows and that
they did climb out the top of the sand after it had swarmed in via
turbiditic flow. Some of these turbidites weren't very big. I mean,
if what you say is true, the layers put down by these sandy turbidites
were only between one millimeter and five centimeters thick. I know
that in other areas the sandy turbidites could be as thick as nine
meters, but that is besides the point. The point is that it is very
difficult to kill a burrowing creature (clam, worm, crab etc) in just
one millimeter of sand. I have covered up such creatures with sand
and they quickly dig out. But, you say, if they dug out, where are
the preserved piles of sand on the top of the sandy layers? The tops
of these layers have evidence of preserved current action and are wavy
or undulating like the sand in the ocean is when acted on by currents.
I have seen small, buried creatures dig out of sand under water in
such areas of current, and the little pile of sand that is made is

quickly obliterated. In just a few seconds you can't even tell where
they made their exit. I am surprised at this argument, because the

answer seems so obvious to me. But of course, you are the geologist
and I am not, so I suppose I must simply accept your argument? But
really, I just don't see the problem here.

Your calculation about the time for the formation of the Haymond beds
was also pretty interesting. Your equation, "1300/5000*365=95 days
for the time over which the Haymond must be deposited." Does not seem
to be an automatic default. First of, you wrote your equation wrong.
I'm sure you meant to write, "5000/1300*365=95." You assume by this
equations that the formation of the entire column required equal time
for each part. You also assume that all those who don't believe the
column is hundreds of millions of years old, must believe that it was
formed by a single catastrophic event, which is simply mistaken. You
also assume that there is simply no way for burrowing creatures to
escape 1mm of sand that "traps" them in their tunnels. Please... this
is almost funny. You never tried to bury these critters as a kid now
did you?

You went on to say, "No geologist believes

that every single formation formed
everywhere over the entire earth."

[Glenn Morton]

One question. before I answer your post. Would you be willing to give up
your belief in a global flood if you were convinced that the data didn't
support it? If not, then we are wasting our time. If so, then we can
continue without being wasteful.
Sean wrote:

Sean Pitman M.D. <Sean...@juno.com> wrote in message
news:fd67d42a.02092...@posting.google.com...

> Glenn Morton
>
> Thanks again for the critique. I found it very interesting and even
> logical. I even enjoyed the abrasive language and sarcasm. Really,
> you did make some excellent points, that even I could understand. As
> far as what I can understand so far, I will change my thinking and
> writing accordingly. After all, this is not my area of expertise.

At least you recognize that and that is a start. I, for one would not
presume to tell you how to fix a broken leg, and thus also understand the
limitations each of us has in areas outside of our respective fields.

> However, from my limited background in geology, I wrote concerning my
> honest questions. You may have all the answers. Apparently you do.
> You seem very wise indeed.

Not wise, just burned over and over by Christians who never seem to say the
truth where it comes to scientific observation. I check their facts out and
that gives me some knowledge that they refuse to go dig out for themselves.

>
> However, the most significant question I have concerning the "vast
> ages" of the geologic column, you did not clearly answer. At least I
> continue to be "confused" even after reading your links to your
> papers. That is, you did not explain, to my understanding at least (I
> may be really slow here, but bear with me), why the vast majority of
> the layers in the column are extremely flat relative to each other
> without significant weathering at their contact zones. True, there do
> seem to be some examples of limited erosion to include rivers that may
> even affect other layers, but overall, the weathering of the various
> layers does not appear to be as widespread as one would expect given
> the effects of current erosion forces on exposed geologic surfaces.

If you would understand some of the stuff that I posted on my web page like
http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/northseatime.htm

You would understand that the basal cretaceous unconformity in the North Sea
is covers hundreds of thousands of square kilometers. It just isn't a local
erosion. In the Gulf of Mexico there is a middle Cretaceous unconformity
which is everywhere over the Gulf region. Even onshore in the US there are
widespread unconformities. You should go read an old article, L.L.Sloss,
"Sequences in Cratonic Interior of North America", Bulletin of the GSA,
74, (1963), circa p. 96

Now, even today the dip of the strata under Dallas Texas is only about 3-4
degrees towards the Gulf of Mexico. If new deposition covered Dallas, the
discordance between the two layers would not be noticeable on most outcrops.
Things would look parallel. That is part of your problem. You think the
Grand Canyon is representative of the rest of the world. It isn't. And even
in the Grand Canyon, there are cave and karsts (sink holes), which contain
sediment from layers which no longer cover Arizona.
"The breccia pipes formed as sedimentary strata collapsed into
dissolution caverns in the underlying Mississippian Redwall Limestone.
Upward stoping through the upper Paleozoic and lower Mesozoic strata,
involving units as high as the Triassic Chinle Formation." ~ Karen J.
Wenrich and Peter W. Huntoon, "Breccia Pipes and Associated
mineralization in the Grand Canyon Region, Northern Arizona," Geology of
the Grand Canyon, Northern Arizona, 28th Int. Geol. Congress, Field Trip
Guide Book, (Washington: AGU, 1989), p. 212

The Chnle formation has almost totally been removed from the Grand Canyon
area by erosion. Since the outcrop of it on the Southeast side of the
Canyon at Cedar Mesa is several hundred feet above the present topography,
we know that that much erosion at a minimum has taken place. We know that
the caves formed and collapsed prior to the erosion of the Triassic strata.
**
search on redwall pipe karst in file lngflood.txt
"1. An extensive karst developed on the emergent Redwall surface
during Late Mississippian time. The Grand Canyon breccia pipes are
associated with this Mississippian karst; cavities from this karst served
as nucleation points for upward stoping. The modern Yucatan karst
provides an excellent analogue for Late Mississippian conditions in the
Grand Canyon."Karen J. Wenrich and Peter W. Huntoon, "Breccia Pipes and
Associated mineralization in the Grand Canyon Region, Northern Arizona,"
Geology of the Grand Canyon, Northern Arizona, 28th Int. Geol. Congress,

> You describe some evidence of rain, some rivers, some seismic
> activity, but still, this doesn't seem to cause all that much general
> weathering in these layers. Why aren't more uneven surfaces, to
> include hills, valleys, canyons, rivers, and generally evidence of the
> action of wind and rain, preserved in the geologic column? Why are
> the contact zones generally so very flat?

There are hundred foot deep channels in the Grand Canyon area. You simply
haven't been told about them or you have simply believed what you have been
taught. Maybe you don't think this is significant erosion but it is.
Consider the size of some of the Grand Canyon channels:

Erosional canyons and hills at top of Esplanade sandstone
locality Channel depth height width
Badger Canyon 70' 300'
Bunker Trail ' 3' '
Kaibob Trail 46' 100'
Hermit Trail 40' 75'
Topocoba Trail 35' 60-80'
Havasu Canyon 47' 44' 80-100'
Thunder River Trail 38' 150'
Kanab Canyon ' 28' 400'
National Canyon 45' 114' 1000'
~George H. Billingsley and Edwin D. McKee, "Erosion Surfaces", in
Edwin McKee, The Supai Group of Grand Canyon, GS Professional
Paper 1173, (1982), p. 175

But here I am doing YOUR homework for you, doing research YOU ought to do
rather than me spoonfeeding you. Don't be like most creationists who are
too afraid or lazy to actually go look at geologic data in both text-books
and the field. And don't be like most creationists who think everyone other
than creationists are lying to them about the facts.

>
> I personally sat down with an evolutionary geologist and asked him why
> the contact zones between various geologic layers were generally so
> crisp and why erosion had not removed entire sections of such layers
> or preserved the undulations of prior surfaces. He explained that
> subsequent catastrophic events leveled the previously uneven surface
> of the lower layer(s).

I don't ever buy stories like that. Nameless fellows who have been spoken
with. Name the guy and lest see if he says what you thought he did. In
other words, I am challenging you to produce evidence for what you say,
which is no better nor worse than anyone in science should be treated. Who
is this anonymous person? What is his e-mail so I can ask him about this
conversation?

When pressed to explain exactly how this
> could happen since turbidites do not erode or significantly level
> uneven surfaces, he said that many of the layers were formed
> underwater where erosion problems are not as significant as they are
> on exposed land surfaces.

To me, this shows that you didn't speak with anyone knowledgeable in geology
even if the guy was an evolutionist. Turbidites are deep water phenomenon,
not surficial events. One never finds a turbidite on the earth's surface at
the time the turbidite occurs. So once again, who is the nameless fellow?

But not all of the layers are thought to
> have been constantly protected by overlying water. Even the ones that
> are thought to primarily represent marine deposits seem too uniform
> over too large an area to represent such long ages. I pressed him
> further to explain the general uniformity and crispness of the contact
> zones of even the layers exposed to the forces of wind and rain over
> millions of years. He finally said that no one really knew the answer
> to this question and that this was a problem, but no one really thinks
> it is significant.

I have probably drilled 100 oil wells in my career (most have been offshore
where they are extremely expensive and thus few are drilled). Most contacts
in the geologic column are NOT sharp. They almost always grade into the
next deposit. There are exceptions of course but what you say is false. I
will post a log to my web page.
http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/logNS2.jpg

The red arrows are where sharp breaks in rock properties occur. All other
transitions, when compared to both velocity of sound and the gamma ray
properties are transitional.

>
> Well, for me it is significant because I cannot understand it using a
> paradigm of punctuated formation that took hundreds of millions of
> years. I do not see enough erosion of the layers. I have talked to
> several geologists and no one has yet given me a clear explanation for
> the crisp contact zones and the general uniform evenness of the
> various layers within the geologic column.

Crisp zones in deep water sediment can easily be due to a landslide of sand
when ends up on top of a muddy zone. A river which floods and spreads sand
over the interdistributary bays (which contain mostly mud) can produce
sharp sand/shale boundaries. There is simply nothing unusual about it. We
have seen such things form in recent Mississippi River floods. Shoot, even
the Red River of Oklahoma/Texas where it enters Lake Texoma produces the
same thing. There is no mystery except why you want this to be a mystery.

>
> Oh, by the way, I do not believe, nor do I think most "creationists"
> believe that the entire column was formed in less than one year or by
> a single event such as a "global flood." I think that the entire
> column appears to have been formed "relatively" quickly taking perhaps
> thousands of years to form, but not millions. I simply do not see
> enough erosion of the layers to represent millions of years.

To erode the limestone and form caves of the Mississippian Redwall strata of
the Grand Canyon would take hundreds of thousands of years. Appeals by some
creationists, like Austin that highly acidic waters flowed through the area
are simply straw grasps because no one has ever seen such a thing.

Some of
> it seems to me to have been formed extremely quickly, but by no means
> all of it. Even evolutionary geologists think that the majority of
> the layers within the geologic column were formed by catastrophic
> events. Of course it is believed that these events were separated by
> very long periods of relative calm. I just don't see the erosive
> evidence to back up such long separation times between the events.

I must absolutely disagree with you here. I work in the geoscience industry.
Most of my compatriots believe that features acting today produced the
geologic column. None of these features are 'catastrophic' in the sense you
seem to use it. We do believe that a big hurricane can produce more
sedimentation than 100 years of normal deposition, but a hurricane is not a
global catastrophe. We do believe that a landslide will cause more change
to topography than a century of erosion, but a landslide is not a
catastrophe in the sense you are using it at all. We do believe that a
turbidite will deposit more sediment than 100 years of slow deposition, but
that too isn't a catastrophe in your sense. These are all normal things,
which happen at rates which are predictable over millennia and millions of
years. So, you are wrong in your belief of what geoscientists hold.

>
> Your argument concerning river formation and river deltas seems pretty
> reasonable to me. My understanding on this issue is admittedly from
> limited and biased sources, all in favor of the rapid formation of the
> geologic column. For now, the evidence, as you present it, seems to
> make some pretty good sense. I will have to study this particular
> issue in more detail.

Thank you. The problem you have is the one I had when I was a young-earth
creationist. I, like you, only read one side of the issue. And when I did
read the other side, I read the geological literature with an attitude that
I was going to find what they did wrong rather than with an attitude of
learning. Of course, the fact that all my circle of friends were also
telling me that the earth was young didn't help me believe any contradictory
data.

>
> As far as describing the extent of the geologic column, I did not
> intend to be indicating that the geologic column covered every square
> inch of the globe. Obviously it does not.

I stand corrected.

By saying that it
> "generally" covered the entire globe, I did not mean that it covered
> the whole globe completely but that it could in fact be found all over

> it "generally". to include such places as the Mountains of Everest.

> Also, I did not mean to indicate that all of the layers of the
> geologic column existed all over the globe or even in any one
> particular place, although, as you say, there may be several places
> where much or all of it does exist. The fact remains however that
> many of the greatest mountains in the world have at least some portion
> of the geologic column on top of them. This seems strange to me
> considering that erosion rates are higher on mountains. How could
> mountains, that have withstood hundreds of millions of years of
> erosion, still be covered by even a small portion of the relatively
> soft geologic column that represents a long ago time when this
> mountain was low enough to experience a submarine environment?

First off, the mountains where there are sediments haven't withstood
'hundreds of millions of erosion'. Places like Everest have only been
uplifted over the past 35 million years.

"Significant vertical uplift probably began in the Oligocene about 35 Ma ago
and has continued to the present time, but at varying rates." Michael A.
Summerfield, Global Geomorphology (Harlow, England, 1991), P. 71

So, your fact is wrong. Secondly, Everest is covered by Mississippian
carbonates. How much sediment has been eroded off of it? We don't know,
because it has been eroded. Thus, you are making the mistake of looking at
the remaining sediment and saying, 'it couldn't last that long,' but of
course it didn't have to last that long. What didn't last that long was the
sediment which was removed! Eroson arguments among creationiss almost always
fail to take account of deposition and then remobilization, as well as the
amount of missing sediment.

This
> question also holds for the relatively thin layers of the geologic
> column generally spread out over the continental shelves. The
> continental shelves may rise when overlying mass is removed, like a
> barge rising in the water when cargo is removed, but how are the
> relatively thin layers of the geologic column preserved from erosion?
> By saying that it only takes 10-15 million years to erode away the
> entire continental shelf, I am not saying that they will erode below
> sea level in this time. They may rise and keep rising for all I know.
> But, the curious problem for me is that this erosion can remove so
> much mass from the continental shelves and yet leave the most
> superficial layers (ie: the geologic column) relatively intact. How
> is this done?

I don't understand the question. Are you saying that more erosion has
occurred on the continental shelves than on the continent or what?

>
> You say that granite is extremely hard and probably weathers away by
> less than 1 inch per thousand years. That seems reasonable, but the
> sedimentary nature of the layers within the geologic column do not
> seem to be this sturdy. Their erosion rate should be much higher than
> that of granite, should it not? How then are they maintained or
> preserved over the course of hundreds of millions of years? Shouldn't
> the surfaces of the granites have been wiped clean, like so much dried
> mud on your driveway, multiple times over the course of several
> hundred million years? Or, does sediment deposition surpass sediment
> erosion?

One thing you miss is that the amount of land exposed to subaerial erosion
has been much less in the past than currently exists. Notice that in the
Cretaceous 1/3 of today's present land area was under water. That means that
there was much less erosion and what was occurring was being re-deposited on
top of the submerged continental blocks.

Exposed land area of rock units 10^6 km^2 land percentage land %
Carbonate Sandstn. Siliceous Volcanic Evaporite. Shield Shale Coal
Total
Recent 20.1 60.9 1.2 17.0 2.2 11.4 22.6 12.0
147.5
Plio. 19.0 60.2 1.2 16.6 2.2 11.4 17.3 12.0
139.9
Mio. 17.0 53.3 1.0 15.5 1.7 11.6 15.6 12.6
128.3
Olig. 21.0 40.6 1.1 14.6 2.3 12.4 14.8 13.5
120.3
Eoc. 18.0 45.5 0.7 14.4 1.7 12.6 14.6 12.4
119.7
Pal. 21.0 46.4 0.9 13.0 1.4 13.0 16.2 11.1
122.8
U.Cret 12.2 41.7 0.4 11.5 1.8 13.4 11.7 9.2
101.8
L.Cret 14.8 42.2 0.2 11.0 2.1 14.3 11.3 9.2
104.9
U.Jura 18.5 38.5 0.3 11.1 3.2 16.4 12.8 9.5
110.3
M.Jura 20.1 41.2 0.3 10.0 3.6 17.9 14.3 11.1
118.5
L.Jura 22.5 36.7 0.4 12.5 4.5 19.9 15.4 9.9
121.8
U.Tria 20.3 34.3 0.6 14.0 5.3 20.7 17.2 9.0
121.3
M.Tria 24.2 31.7 0.9 9.8 6.4 23.1 22.0 10.1
128.3
L.Tria 23.7 31.6 1.0 10.4 6.1 23.2 21.7 10.2
128.1
U.Perm 23.9 27.7 0.4 8.8 4.2 24.9 21.9 11.5
123.3
L.Perm 20.5 25.8 0.4 8.3 3.2 26.0 20.3 11.0
115.4
U.Carb 21.4 26.7 0.5 8.0 2.5 28.2 19.5 1.9
108.9
L.Carb 21.0 24.6 0.4 7.4 1.9 31.6 21.5 0.7
109.1
U.Dev 19.1 21.3 0.4 7.8 1.5 33.2 17.3 0.2
100.6
M.Dev 19.3 16.7 0.5 8.0 1.4 34.3 16.4 0.1
96.7
L.Dev 23.5 15.2 0.6 8.1 1.4 35.9 21.5 0
106.3
U.Sil 23.1 16.6 0.6 8.6 0.7 38.1 22.8 0
110.5
L.Sil 19.1 13.1 0.3 8.2 0.7 38.6 17.8 0
97.8
U.Ord 16.1 15.0 0.4 8.3 0.8 41.7 21.2 0
103.4
M.Ord 14.2 12.3 0.4 8.6 0.6 46.4 15.2 0
97.7
L.Ord 13.5 12.6 0.4 9.1 0.4 48.8 15.1 0
99.8
U.Camb 13.6 12.6 0.5 9.5 0.5 52.3 14.5 0
103.3
M.Camb 10.6 11.9 0.5 10.3 0.5 58.2 13.3 0
105.4
L.Camb 9.2 12.1 0.6 10.7 0.5 61.3 13.8 0
108.2

~ Gregg J. S. Bluth and Lee R. Kump, "Phanerozoic
Paleogeology," American Journal of Science, 291(1991):284-308, P. 306

>
> I do have some other "aside" comments concerning some of your other
> critiques.
>
> I wrote:
>
> >One of the very foundations of evolution
> >and popular science today is the "geologic
> >column." This column is made up of layers of
> >sedimentary rock and is supposed to have formed
> >over millions and even billions of years.
>
>
> You went off by saying that this is, "historically absolutely false."
> You know as well as I do what I am talking about. I am not talking
> about history here, but how modern evolutionary scientists view the
> geologic column.

No I don't know what you are talking about. You said that the foundation of
evolution is the geologic column. That isn't true. The foundation of
evolution was the observations of morphological change observed by Darwin.
He has very little paleontology in his book and thus relied little on
geology to develop evolution.

Geology, fossils and the geologic column that
> contains them, are a huge part of the modern theory of evolution.
> Please, I get referred to the geologic column and the fossil record
> all the time as some of the most solid evidence for the "truth" of
> evolution in existence. Don't tell me that my statement is false when
> the geologic column is obviously one of the biggest pillars of
> evolution around.

You believe in a global flood and that life which got on the ark got off of
it after a year and repopulated the earth. Then explain why we don't find
any modern species of mamamals below the Miocene? Why don't we find any
modern genera of fish buried in cretaceous rocks?

youngest period # Fish genera # living genera # extinct genera
Recent 3245 3245 0
Pleistocene 422 408 14
Pliocene 416 372 44
Miocene 496 320 176
Oligocene 321 207 114
Eocene 398 157 241
Paleocene 124 53 71
Cretaceous 340 38 302
Jurassic 146 5 141
Triassic 175 0 175
Permian 86 0 86
Pennsylvanian 106 0 106
Mississippian 163 0 163
Devonian 524 0 524
Silurian 57 0 57
Ordovician 5 0 5
Cambrian 1 0 1
http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/fish.htm

same thing for mammals
Recent 4631 species
Pleistocene 282
Pliocene 67
Miocene 2
oldest
The two living species found in the Miocene are the carnivore Callorhinus
ursinus and the bat, Rhinolophus ferrum-equinum.
The final implication of the data is that other than these (aggregate 282
species), ALL species found in the fossil record are different from those
living today. The number of extinct species found in the various epochs of
the Tertiary are:
Youngest
Pleistocene 786
Pliocene 1119
Miocene 2988
Oligocene 1282
Eocene 1819
Paleocene 604
http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/fish.htm

>
> You also commented, "You can also see overthrusts and other things you
> say don't exist."
>
> I never said any such thing. Overthrusts obviously exist. Sometimes
> they are rather huge, with vast slabs that are hundreds of miles long
> and hundreds of feet thick extending many miles over other layers.
> Funny thing is, I am told that there doesn't seem to be a lot of
> evidence of sliding, gauging or heat production from friction for many
> of these overthrusts. I find that rather odd. Can you point me in
> the right direction on this one?

See http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/othrust.htm for an explanation
of how overthrusts exist and why they don't show what creationists expect.

>
> You also wrote, "If erosion has erased
> parts of the column, you can't
> at the same time state
> as you do above that the column
> exists all over the world. When
> writing it is advisable to
> remember what one writes in the
> previous paragraph."
>
> Again, you misunderstood my statement in a couple of ways. First off,
> I don't believe that the column exists over every spot on the globe,
> just a lot of spots. Secondly, you missed my whole point. Consider a
> column 5 layers thick. If erosion comes along and removes 90% of the
> top layer, 70% of the next layer, 50% of the next and so on, then,
> what will happen when the a sixth catastrophic sedimentation event
> comes along? It will fill in the eroded areas and preserve the
> erosion history of these layers. However, the missing sections of
> these layers can never be replaced. They are lost forever. You have
> shown a few examples of erosive forces that are preserved within the
> column, such as rivers, but compared to erosive forces that we have
> eroding the current surface layers of the column, the erosive forces
> that you have described seem relatively rare to me.

That is because you don't know much geology. You need more exposure to
other areas and other sources of information than merely from your religious
sources.

A few rivers, a
> bit of rain, but generally the layers remain uniform.

Obviously you haven't seen much seismic data.

The rivers
> could have been the result of a rapid runoff with quick erosion, not
> necessarily present for millions of years. You say that this river
> affects underlying levels, and this does seem to be the case, but it
> is too isolated a case. There is not enough evidence of supporting
> erosion in these layers to make this a conclusive argument, from my
> limited perspective of course. I will look more into it however.
> Your example of a canyon formation still seems rather isolated. Are
> the surrounding contact zones of the layer or layers that preserved
> this canyon crisp and flat without very much evidence of weathering?
> It seems to me that fairly large canyons have been formed, even in
> modern times, in a very rapid manner by quick water runoff from a
> large body of water.

What you are referring to is canyons dug out of soft dirt, not hard rock.

>
> I will have to further review your discussion and references
> concerning the Coconino sand dunes. However, I do not understand how
> such crisp vertebrate footprints, to include prints of toenails could
> be preserved in dry sand as you suggest. Perhaps they could be
> preserved in wet sand that has been exposed to air for a while, having
> somewhat of a crusted surface.

I agree, that the sand must have been a bit damp for the preservation of
detailed foot prints, but this happens even in deserts. Or could happen in
the Sand Hills of Western Nebraska which gets enough rain today to hold the
dunes in check, but they are former desert dunes.

But, loose, dry sand, just doesn't
> seem to be able to preserve such detailed footprints as are found in
> the Coconino dunes. Also, shifting dry sands do not seem to be able
> to preserve footprints either. I'm still pretty skeptical of your
> take on this one, but I will look into it further.
>
> Your description of turbidites (thanks for the spelling tip) and shale
> layering in the Haymond beds of West Texas was very interesting
> indeed. I have a couple of comments/questions for you however. First
> off, I do not require that this area of the geologic column be formed
> by a single catastrophic event. I am not saying that a single
> catastrophic event made the entire geologic column or even that a
> single catastrophic even made most of the column. I am perfectly open
> to multiple catastrophes creating the column, just not with
> separations of millions of years between catastrophes. Having said
> this, I have other questions for you concerning your thoughts about
> the Haymond beds.

The Haymond beds probably didn't last more than a million to 2 million
years. Thus, we don't have a case of millions of years between turbidite
flows. Probably 1000 years or less between each flow.

>
> You said, "We know that the burrowers
> who were buried did not survive. If
> they had, they would have had to dig
> up through the sand to escape their
> entombment. There are no burrows going
> up through the sand. And if there had
> been these burrows, there should be little
> circular piles of sand with a central
> crater pocking the entire upper surface
> of the sand. We don't see these."
>
> I know that some argue that these burrows represent "escape" burrows.

No one has argued that these are escape burrows except those desperate
creationists who can't account for the time required by this deposit. They
argue that way lacking any and all evidence of vertical motion in the sand.
If worms had moved up, they would leave a disturbed zone. We see these in
some sands, but not the Haymond ones.

> Not only creationist literature calls them this. I have also read
> what you have written about this as well. Let me pose a scenario for
> you though. Lets just assume that these are escape burrows and that
> they did climb out the top of the sand after it had swarmed in via
> turbiditic flow. Some of these turbidites weren't very big. I mean,
> if what you say is true, the layers put down by these sandy turbidites
> were only between one millimeter and five centimeters thick. I know
> that in other areas the sandy turbidites could be as thick as nine
> meters, but that is besides the point. The point is that it is very
> difficult to kill a burrowing creature (clam, worm, crab etc) in just
> one millimeter of sand. I have covered up such creatures with sand
> and they quickly dig out. But, you say, if they dug out, where are
> the preserved piles of sand on the top of the sandy layers? The tops
> of these layers have evidence of preserved current action and are wavy
> or undulating like the sand in the ocean is when acted on by currents.

These are deep layers below wave base. I don't know where you got the idea
that the sand tops were wavy. Do you have a reference? Of the worms, they
don't live in sandy environments, only in shaly environments. Thus, even if
they did escape, they would have to move to other areas to live. And before
they can re-inhabit the area, shale must be deposited. Shale, as I point
out, takes long periods of time to be deposited. If you allow for 41 years
for that deposit 1 layer per day, then you still have to account for the
75,000 feet of sediment stratigraphically above this horizon filling the
Gulf of Mexico. The entire section which contains the Haymond beds dips
below the sediments filling the Gulf. The Gulf has 75,000 feet of sediment.
So, if the Haymond bed took 41 years, then Noah was already off the boat
long before the Haymond could be deposited meaning that 75,000 feet of Gulf
sediment was deposited post flood. Thus, the great catastrophe was over,
meaning that it would then take millions of years for that much sediment to
accumulate.

> I have seen small, buried creatures dig out of sand under water in
> such areas of current, and the little pile of sand that is made is
> quickly obliterated. In just a few seconds you can't even tell where
> they made their exit. I am surprised at this argument, because the
> answer seems so obvious to me. But of course, you are the geologist
> and I am not, so I suppose I must simply accept your argument? But
> really, I just don't see the problem here.

Show me the evidence that wave erosion removed the sand piles which the
worms would make. Or am I merely supposed to take your word for it?

>
> Your calculation about the time for the formation of the Haymond beds
> was also pretty interesting. Your equation, "1300/5000*365=95 days
> for the time over which the Haymond must be deposited." Does not seem
> to be an automatic default. First of, you wrote your equation wrong.
> I'm sure you meant to write, "5000/1300*365=95."

No, Sean, you show that you aren't good at math. I meant to write
1300/5000*365. The Haymond beds are 1300 m thick. The entire preserved
geologic column there is 5000 m thick. Thus the Haymond represents
1300/5000=26% of the total strata. Simply linearly interpolating means that
the Haymond took 25% of the time for the global flood to be deposited. That
happens to be 95 days.

You assume by this
> equations that the formation of the entire column required equal time
> for each part. You also assume that all those who don't believe the
> column is hundreds of millions of years old, must believe that it was
> formed by a single catastrophic event, which is simply mistaken.

If it wasn't then the flood was millions of years ago because you still have
75,000 feet of regional stratigraphy to be deposited AFTER the Haymond was
deposited.

You
> also assume that there is simply no way for burrowing creatures to
> escape 1mm of sand that "traps" them in their tunnels. Please... this
> is almost funny. You never tried to bury these critters as a kid now
> did you?

All the time. My mother beat me and my brother, my Dad was always gone cause
he couldn't stand her, and I was a bully and a thug. (all literally true).
So yes, as a child, I did things I am not proud of

>
> You went on to say, "No geologist believes
> that every single formation formed
> everywhere over the entire earth."
>
> I would not expect to find a single formation formed everywhere over
> the entire earth, even with a global catastrophe, such as a global
> flood. It seems to me that such a global catastrophe would affect
> different areas in different ways and make different kinds of
> sedimentation. Even if not and there was no single global
> catastrophe, this still does not explain why the layers are so flat
> and even without significant weathering in-between.

This is a ridiculous objection. How much evidence for erosion do you see in
Southern Louisiana? The highest topographic feature is about 35 feet above
sea level.

Even without a
> single global event, they still do not seem to be hundreds of millions
> of years old. I am ok with their formation with many separate events
> that were separated by relatively short gaps in time, but I am not
> seeing the evidence for hundreds of millions of years. Even so, there
> are in fact very large areas that are covered by single layers.

Can you document this amazing claim? I have never heard that before and
think you have been reading too many people writing on geology who, like
you, are not experts.

Some
> stretch a fair distance around the globe. It seems like any kind of
> catastrophe that could create any one of these monsters, such as might
> have been the case following a giant meteor impact, could have
> released enough energy to cause huge tidal waves to encircle most if
> not then entire globe, maybe more than once?

Ah, I see, I think you are actually referring to the work I originally did
and published in the Creation Research Society Quarterly, Morton, G. R.
(1984). Global, Continental, and Regional Sedimentation Systems and Their
Implications. Creation Research Society Quarterly. 21:23-33.

I was the first to note in creationist literature that certain widespread
formations might be indications of the flood. I was wrong for a whole
variety of reasons.
Yes there are widespread deposits, but they don't indicate a global flood.
The Mississippian crinoidal limestones are widespread (but not universal)
and contain unique fossils found in no other layer. There are so many dead
crinoids contained in these beds that if spread all over the earth, they
could cover it to a depth of a couple of meters. So if the pre-flood world
was covered with crinoids(a marine animal, where did the buffalo roam? There
are enough diatoms to cover the earth to a depth of 20 meters and enough
dead chalk to cover the earth to about the same. All of these are marine
creatures and there are more found in the fossil record than can possibly
have inhabited one preflood earth. Or even an earth 200,000 years old.

>
> Your retort concerning sediment filling up the great lakes seems
> pretty interesting. Are you saying that the amount of sediment in the
> bottom of the lakes, divided by the amount of sediment that comes into
> the lakes every year, is equal to many millions of years? I find this
> hard to believe, but I will look into it further.

No, I am saying that your calculation of how to date the age of the lakes is
wrong. You don't date the age of the lakes by measuring how long it will
take to fill the remaining space. You date it by calculating how long it
took to fill up the lake to the level it is currently at.

>
> Your stuff on clastic dykes is also very interesting indeed.
> Honestly, this does seem to make some sense to me, but I am not
> completely convinced yet. Will have to look into it further.

Don't let the phrase 'will look into it further' become a cop out. Too many
young-earthers do that. They never go actually do any more study.

It
> seems that your hypothesis that sand can remain liquefied for millions
> of years is based on an "a priori" understanding in the "truth" of the
> old age of the geologic column. Even so, I see your point. If sand
> can remain liquefied far longer than other overlying sediments, then
> it would still be able to squirt under pressure. But why do some of
> these clastic dykes have a core that is formed of clay? How did the
> clay remain liquefied?

Sands aren't liquefied. They remain unconsolidated. Those who have taught
you geology haven't taught you the correct terminology.

>
> Well, I will stop with these questions for now. I do appreciate your
> time and effort in your reply. I'm not writing or challenging
> evolution to convince or "convert" anyone to my way of thinking so

> much as I am putting my ideas out there for others to challenge. for

> my own benefit and knowledge. I have no burden to convince you or
> anyone else of anything. That's not my job. I'm not one who thinks
> it is "morally wrong" to believe in evolution. I wish to hear the
> other side of the story, your side of the story, primarily for my own
> benefit. You have in fact challenged me in a very good way. I am
> very interested in your views and insights. I find them quite
> interesting and reasonable. I am not yet converted to your point of
> view, but even I can see, with my dull wit, that your position is
> carefully considered and not at all irrational.

Thank you for the kind words. I spent years trying to maintain a
young-earth viewpoint in the face of all the geology I was seeing at work.
Eventually I had to either be honest with myself that the data didn't
support my theology or resolve to become dishonest and believe the theology
regardless. I chose honesty. It was a painful transition, very painful. I
hope you remain as honest as you appear.

[Sean Pitman M.D.]

Repeat post due to formatting problem:

Glenn Morton,

Thanks again for the critique. I found it very interesting and even
logical. I even enjoyed the abrasive language and sarcasm. Really,
you did make some excellent points, that even I could understand. As
far as what I can understand so far, I will change my thinking and
writing accordingly. After all, this is not my area of expertise.

However, from my limited background in geology, I wrote concerning my
honest questions. You may have all the answers. Apparently you do.
You seem very wise indeed.

However, the most significant question I have concerning the "vast
ages" of the geologic column, you did not clearly answer. At least I
continue to be "confused" even after reading your links to your
papers. That is, you did not explain, to my understanding at least (I
may be really slow here, but bear with me), why the vast majority of
the layers in the column are extremely flat relative to each other
without significant weathering at their contact zones. True, there do
seem to be some examples of limited erosion to include rivers that may
even affect other layers, but overall, the weathering of the various
layers does not appear to be as widespread as one would expect given
the effects of current erosion forces on exposed geologic surfaces.

You describe some evidence of rain, some rivers, some seismic
activity, but still, this doesn't seem to cause all that much general
weathering in these layers. Why aren't more uneven surfaces, to
include hills, valleys, canyons, rivers, and generally evidence of the
action of wind and rain, preserved in the geologic column? Why are
the contact zones generally so very flat?

I personally sat down with an evolutionary geologist and asked him why
the contact zones between various geologic layers were generally so
crisp and why erosion had not removed entire sections of such layers
or preserved the undulations of prior surfaces. He explained that
subsequent catastrophic events leveled the previously uneven surface

of the lower layer(s). When pressed to explain exactly how this

could happen since turbidites do not erode or significantly level
uneven surfaces, he said that many of the layers were formed
underwater where erosion problems are not as significant as they are

on exposed land surfaces. But not all of the layers are thought to

have been constantly protected by overlying water. Even the ones that
are thought to primarily represent marine deposits seem too uniform
over too large an area to represent such long ages. I pressed him
further to explain the general uniformity and crispness of the contact
zones of even the layers exposed to the forces of wind and rain over
millions of years. He finally said that no one really knew the answer
to this question and that this was a problem, but no one really thinks
it is significant.

Well, for me it is significant because I cannot understand it using a
paradigm of punctuated formation that took hundreds of millions of
years. I do not see enough erosion of the layers. I have talked to
several geologists and no one has yet given me a clear explanation for
the crisp contact zones and the general uniform evenness of the
various layers within the geologic column.

Oh, by the way, I do not believe, nor do I think most "creationists"
believe that the entire column was formed in less than one year or by
a single event such as a "global flood." I think that the entire
column appears to have been formed "relatively" quickly taking perhaps
thousands of years to form, but not millions. I simply do not see

enough erosion of the layers to represent millions of years. Some of

it seems to me to have been formed extremely quickly, but by no means
all of it. Even evolutionary geologists think that the majority of
the layers within the geologic column were formed by catastrophic
events. Of course it is believed that these events were separated by
very long periods of relative calm. I just don't see the erosive
evidence to back up such long separation times between the events.

Your argument concerning river formation and river deltas seems pretty
reasonable to me. My understanding on this issue is admittedly from
limited and biased sources, all in favor of the rapid formation of the
geologic column. For now, the evidence, as you present it, seems to
make some pretty good sense. I will have to study this particular
issue in more detail.

As far as describing the extent of the geologic column, I did not
intend to be indicating that the geologic column covered every square

inch of the globe. Obviously it does not. By saying that it

"generally" covered the entire globe, I did not mean that it covered
the whole globe completely but that it could in fact be found all over

it "generally"… to include such places as the Mountains of Everest.

Also, I did not mean to indicate that all of the layers of the
geologic column existed all over the globe or even in any one
particular place, although, as you say, there may be several places
where much or all of it does exist. The fact remains however that
many of the greatest mountains in the world have at least some portion
of the geologic column on top of them. This seems strange to me
considering that erosion rates are higher on mountains. How could
mountains, that have withstood hundreds of millions of years of
erosion, still be covered by even a small portion of the relatively
soft geologic column that represents a long ago time when this

mountain was low enough to experience a submarine environment? This

question also holds for the relatively thin layers of the geologic
column generally spread out over the continental shelves. The
continental shelves may rise when overlying mass is removed, like a
barge rising in the water when cargo is removed, but how are the
relatively thin layers of the geologic column preserved from erosion?
By saying that it only takes 10-15 million years to erode away the
entire continental shelf, I am not saying that they will erode below
sea level in this time. They may rise and keep rising for all I know.
But, the curious problem for me is that this erosion can remove so
much mass from the continental shelves and yet leave the most
superficial layers (ie: the geologic column) relatively intact. How
is this done?

You say that granite is extremely hard and probably weathers away by
less than 1 inch per thousand years. That seems reasonable, but the
sedimentary nature of the layers within the geologic column do not
seem to be this sturdy. Their erosion rate should be much higher than
that of granite, should it not? How then are they maintained or
preserved over the course of hundreds of millions of years? Shouldn't
the surfaces of the granites have been wiped clean, like so much dried
mud on your driveway, multiple times over the course of several
hundred million years? Or, does sediment deposition surpass sediment
erosion?

I do have some other "aside" comments concerning some of your other
critiques.

I wrote:

>One of the very foundations of evolution
>and popular science today is the "geologic
>column." This column is made up of layers of
>sedimentary rock and is supposed to have formed
>over millions and even billions of years.

You went off by saying that this is, "historically absolutely false."
You know as well as I do what I am talking about. I am not talking
about history here, but how modern evolutionary scientists view the

geologic column. Geology, fossils and the geologic column that

contains them, are a huge part of the modern theory of evolution.
Please, I get referred to the geologic column and the fossil record
all the time as some of the most solid evidence for the "truth" of
evolution in existence. Don't tell me that my statement is false when
the geologic column is obviously one of the biggest pillars of
evolution around.

You also commented, "You can also see overthrusts and other things you
say don't exist."

I never said any such thing. Overthrusts obviously exist. Sometimes
they are rather huge, with vast slabs that are hundreds of miles long
and hundreds of feet thick extending many miles over other layers.
Funny thing is, I am told that there doesn't seem to be a lot of
evidence of sliding, gauging or heat production from friction for many
of these overthrusts. I find that rather odd. Can you point me in
the right direction on this one?

You also wrote, "If erosion has erased

parts of the column, you can't
at the same time state
as you do above that the column
exists all over the world. When
writing it is advisable to
remember what one writes in the
previous paragraph."

Again, you misunderstood my statement in a couple of ways. First off,
I don't believe that the column exists over every spot on the globe,
just a lot of spots. Secondly, you missed my whole point. Consider a
column 5 layers thick. If erosion comes along and removes 90% of the
top layer, 70% of the next layer, 50% of the next and so on, then,
what will happen when the a sixth catastrophic sedimentation event
comes along? It will fill in the eroded areas and preserve the
erosion history of these layers. However, the missing sections of
these layers can never be replaced. They are lost forever. You have
shown a few examples of erosive forces that are preserved within the
column, such as rivers, but compared to erosive forces that we have
eroding the current surface layers of the column, the erosive forces

that you have described seem relatively rare to me. A few rivers, a
bit of rain, but generally the layers remain uniform. The rivers

could have been the result of a rapid runoff with quick erosion, not
necessarily present for millions of years. You say that this river
affects underlying levels, and this does seem to be the case, but it
is too isolated a case. There is not enough evidence of supporting
erosion in these layers to make this a conclusive argument, from my
limited perspective of course. I will look more into it however.
Your example of a canyon formation still seems rather isolated. Are
the surrounding contact zones of the layer or layers that preserved
this canyon crisp and flat without very much evidence of weathering?
It seems to me that fairly large canyons have been formed, even in
modern times, in a very rapid manner by quick water runoff from a
large body of water.

I will have to further review your discussion and references
concerning the Coconino sand dunes. However, I do not understand how
such crisp vertebrate footprints, to include prints of toenails could
be preserved in dry sand as you suggest. Perhaps they could be
preserved in wet sand that has been exposed to air for a while, having

somewhat of a crusted surface. But, loose, dry sand, just doesn't

seem to be able to preserve such detailed footprints as are found in
the Coconino dunes. Also, shifting dry sands do not seem to be able
to preserve footprints either. I'm still pretty skeptical of your
take on this one, but I will look into it further.

Your description of turbidites (thanks for the spelling tip) and shale
layering in the Haymond beds of West Texas was very interesting
indeed. I have a couple of comments/questions for you however. First
off, I do not require that this area of the geologic column be formed
by a single catastrophic event. I am not saying that a single
catastrophic event made the entire geologic column or even that a
single catastrophic even made most of the column. I am perfectly open
to multiple catastrophes creating the column, just not with
separations of millions of years between catastrophes. Having said
this, I have other questions for you concerning your thoughts about
the Haymond beds.

You said, "We know that the burrowers

who were buried did not survive. If
they had, they would have had to dig
up through the sand to escape their
entombment. There are no burrows going
up through the sand. And if there had
been these burrows, there should be little
circular piles of sand with a central
crater pocking the entire upper surface
of the sand. We don't see these."

I know that some argue that these burrows represent "escape" burrows.

Not only creationist literature calls them this. I have also read
what you have written about this as well. Let me pose a scenario for
you though. Lets just assume that these are escape burrows and that
they did climb out the top of the sand after it had swarmed in via
turbiditic flow. Some of these turbidites weren't very big. I mean,
if what you say is true, the layers put down by these sandy turbidites
were only between one millimeter and five centimeters thick. I know
that in other areas the sandy turbidites could be as thick as nine
meters, but that is besides the point. The point is that it is very
difficult to kill a burrowing creature (clam, worm, crab etc) in just
one millimeter of sand. I have covered up such creatures with sand
and they quickly dig out. But, you say, if they dug out, where are
the preserved piles of sand on the top of the sandy layers? The tops
of these layers have evidence of preserved current action and are wavy
or undulating like the sand in the ocean is when acted on by currents.

I have seen small, buried creatures dig out of sand under water in
such areas of current, and the little pile of sand that is made is
quickly obliterated. In just a few seconds you can't even tell where
they made their exit. I am surprised at this argument, because the
answer seems so obvious to me. But of course, you are the geologist
and I am not, so I suppose I must simply accept your argument? But
really, I just don't see the problem here.

Your calculation about the time for the formation of the Haymond beds
was also pretty interesting. Your equation, "1300/5000*365=95 days
for the time over which the Haymond must be deposited." Does not seem
to be an automatic default. First of, you wrote your equation wrong.

I'm sure you meant to write, "5000/1300*365=95." You assume by this

equations that the formation of the entire column required equal time
for each part. You also assume that all those who don't believe the
column is hundreds of millions of years old, must believe that it was

formed by a single catastrophic event, which is simply mistaken. You

also assume that there is simply no way for burrowing creatures to
escape 1mm of sand that "traps" them in their tunnels. Please... this
is almost funny. You never tried to bury these critters as a kid now
did you?

You went on to say, "No geologist believes

that every single formation formed
everywhere over the entire earth."

I would not expect to find a single formation formed everywhere over
the entire earth, even with a global catastrophe, such as a global
flood. It seems to me that such a global catastrophe would affect
different areas in different ways and make different kinds of
sedimentation. Even if not and there was no single global
catastrophe, this still does not explain why the layers are so flat

and even without significant weathering in-between. Even without a

single global event, they still do not seem to be hundreds of millions
of years old. I am ok with their formation with many separate events
that were separated by relatively short gaps in time, but I am not
seeing the evidence for hundreds of millions of years. Even so, there

are in fact very large areas that are covered by single layers. Some

stretch a fair distance around the globe. It seems like any kind of
catastrophe that could create any one of these monsters, such as might
have been the case following a giant meteor impact, could have
released enough energy to cause huge tidal waves to encircle most if
not then entire globe, maybe more than once?

Your retort concerning sediment filling up the great lakes seems
pretty interesting. Are you saying that the amount of sediment in the
bottom of the lakes, divided by the amount of sediment that comes into
the lakes every year, is equal to many millions of years? I find this
hard to believe, but I will look into it further.

Your stuff on clastic dykes is also very interesting indeed.
Honestly, this does seem to make some sense to me, but I am not

completely convinced yet. Will have to look into it further. It

seems that your hypothesis that sand can remain liquefied for millions
of years is based on an "a priori" understanding in the "truth" of the
old age of the geologic column. Even so, I see your point. If sand
can remain liquefied far longer than other overlying sediments, then
it would still be able to squirt under pressure. But why do some of
these clastic dykes have a core that is formed of clay? How did the
clay remain liquefied?

Well, I will stop with these questions for now. I do appreciate your
time and effort in your reply. I'm not writing or challenging
evolution to convince or "convert" anyone to my way of thinking so

much as I am putting my ideas out there for others to challenge… for

my own benefit and knowledge. I have no burden to convince you or
anyone else of anything. That's not my job. I'm not one who thinks
it is "morally wrong" to believe in evolution. I wish to hear the
other side of the story, your side of the story, primarily for my own
benefit. You have in fact challenged me in a very good way. I am
very interested in your views and insights. I find them quite
interesting and reasonable. I am not yet converted to your point of
view, but even I can see, with my dull wit, that your position is
carefully considered and not at all irrational.

Thanks again,

Sean

[Stanley Friesen]

Sean...@juno.com (Sean Pitman M.D.) wrote:
>However, the most significant question I have concerning the "vast
>ages" of the geologic column, you did not clearly answer. At least I
>continue to be "confused" even after reading your links to your
>papers. That is, you did not explain, to my understanding at least (I
>may be really slow here, but bear with me), why the vast majority of
>the layers in the column are extremely flat relative to each other
>without significant weathering at their contact zones.

1. Flat is the normal state. Layers that are deposited without
significant pause between episodes *will* be flat, or nearly so (except
for wave ripples and other current-derived bedding structures).

2. There *is* significant weathering between layers when there is
sufficient time between depositional episodes. Nonconformities,
disconformities, and so on abound in the geological column. Some are as
obvious as the extensive angular disconformity between the lower layers
of the Grand Canyon wall and the upper layers thereof. Others are
subtle and hard to detect in single outcrops.

3. Sufficient erosion will, itself, produce a nearly flat surface.
This is a source of some types of subtle disconformities.

>True, there do
>seem to be some examples of limited erosion to include rivers that may
>even affect other layers, but overall, the weathering of the various
>layers does not appear to be as widespread as one would expect given
>the effects of current erosion forces on exposed geologic surfaces.

This is an illusion due to lack of in-depth knowledge on your part, and
to an emphasis on the layers as opposed to the boundaries in most
discussions of geology. There is scarcely an extended exposure of any
size anywhere that lacks *some* trace of erosion between certain layers.

>You describe some evidence of rain, some rivers, some seismic
>activity, but still, this doesn't seem to cause all that much general
>weathering in these layers. Why aren't more uneven surfaces, to
>include hills, valleys, canyons, rivers, and generally evidence of the
>action of wind and rain, preserved in the geologic column?

These things are actually common. It is just that, due to various
factors, the hills and valleys are rarely reconstructed per se. Such
things are more often mentioned peripherally to some other research
issue.

One example of this is the article:
Retallack, G.J., 1994. "A pedotype approach to latest Cretaceous and
earliest tertiary paleosols in eastern Montana". Geological Society of
America Bulletin, v. 106, pp 1377-1397.

This contains a number of landscape reconstructions, and considerable
discussion of erosional relationships as part of the presentation of the
original distribution of soil types in the environment.

Another example is the monograph:

Lofgren, D.L. 1995. "The Bug Creek Problem and the Cretaceous-Tertiary
Transition ant McGuire Creek, Montana". University of California
Publications in Geological Sciences, vol 140. University of California
Press.

This paper is mainly about the timing of the terminal Cretaceous
extinctions. But in order to determine this it was necessary for the
author to study channel and valley relationships in detail across the
boundary interval, since later erosional channels can cut into older
sediments, obscuring temporal relationships.

> Why are
>the contact zones generally so very flat?

Check the last mentioned article.

Answer: they aren't, except locally in single outcrops.

The peace of God be with you.

Stanley Friesen

[Stanley Friesen]

"Glenn Morton" <glenn....@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>Erosional canyons and hills at top of Esplanade sandstone

Pitman please note, these are from ONE layer in the Grand Canyon wall.
It is therefore probably not a complete list.

>locality Channel depth height width

> ...

>National Canyon 45' 114' 1000'

Yeek, that's a *major* river. Perhaps not quite up to the Mississippi
River level, but not far below it.

>
>To erode the limestone and form caves of the Mississippian Redwall strata of
>the Grand Canyon would take hundreds of thousands of years. Appeals by some
>creationists, like Austin that highly acidic waters flowed through the area
>are simply straw grasps because no one has ever seen such a thing.

Given the volumes of rock involved, and the slowness with which
limestone dissolves even in most acids, it would require profoundly
acidic water to accomplish this.

>
>First off, the mountains where there are sediments haven't withstood
>'hundreds of millions of erosion'. Places like Everest have only been
>uplifted over the past 35 million years.
>
>"Significant vertical uplift probably began in the Oligocene about 35 Ma ago
>and has continued to the present time, but at varying rates." Michael A.
>Summerfield, Global Geomorphology (Harlow, England, 1991), P. 71
>

Yep, Everest is *still* being uplifted. So are the local mountains here
(Los Angeles). In the last major earthquake here, one local mountain
increased in height several feet in a few tens of seconds. These
features are so new they have not had time to erode - indeed they are
currently forming faster than erosion can destroy them.

>So, your fact is wrong. Secondly, Everest is covered by Mississippian
>carbonates. How much sediment has been eroded off of it? We don't know,
>because it has been eroded.

Though given the vast time span between Mississippian and Oligocene, it
could be an immense amount.

>
>What you are referring to is canyons dug out of soft dirt, not hard rock.

And, Pitman, geologists can tell the difference. After all that is part
of their job.

[Hamish Reid]

In article <amhur7$fun$1...@paris.btinternet.com>,
"Glenn Morton" <glenn....@btinternet.com> wrote:

> One question. before I answer your post. Would you be willing to give up
> your belief in a global flood if you were convinced that the data didn't
> support it? If not, then we are wasting our time. If so, then we can
> continue without being wasteful.

Just one quick note here: regardless of whether the Good Doctor is a
True Believer or not, this sort of exchange is useful to the rest of us,
and not in any sense a waste of time. Whether Sean will or will not
(almost certainly the latter) change his views on the Flood, the point
is to educate the audience about so-called flood geology.

In fact, the point of public exchanges with True Believers is not to
persuade the True Believer (they wouldn't be True Believers if that sort
of thing worked...), but to let the rest of us -- lurkers, undecideds,
etc., -- know what's wrong (and right, for that matter...) with the
various arguments used, and what science actually says about things,
and, most importantly, to prod the rest of us into thinking further
about the issues.

This particular exchange is fascinating -- both because I'm learning a
lot of geology from you (Glenn) and because I learn a lot about
borderline True Believers and their Flood Geology arguments (from Sean,
who is at least more complex than the average True Believer). Keep it
up, please!

Hamish (remove the "xyz"'s to respond via email...)

[Glenn Morton]

Hi Stanley, its been a long time since we corresponded. You wrote:

Stanley Friesen <sar...@friesen.net> wrote in message
news:nu7pousi2u5ollj0o...@4ax.com...
> "Glenn Morton" <glenn....@btinternet.com> wrote:

> >So, your fact is wrong. Secondly, Everest is covered by Mississippian
> >carbonates. How much sediment has been eroded off of it? We don't know,
> >because it has been eroded.
>
> Though given the vast time span between Mississippian and Oligocene, it
> could be an immense amount.

On this one, I think you miss the point. The Mississippian strata is all
that is left, If you look at the geology of Tibet, you will find that there
are rocks up to the Upper Eocene still in existence in the region. Thus,
since we know that some areas have eroded faster than others, the Eocene
represents the minimum age for sedimentary cover which existed in that area
prior to the uplift. I don't know how thick the section was, but I would
bet that on Everest there used to be Upper Cretaceous strata prior to the
uplift. In the area, the Mesozoic strata are deepwater turbidites, the
post-early Eocene beds are entirely continental.See.I. Taner and A. A.
Meyerhoff, Petroleum at the Roof of the World, Journal of Petroleum Geolgoy
13(2):1990, p. 157-178, p. 157 and 173

[Glenn Morton]

Hi Hamish, my language below will be a bit religious because I am not
directing it at you but at the YECs reading this.

Hamish Reid <hami...@panxyzdemoniazyx.com> wrote in message
news:hamishxyz-4476E...@news.supernews.com...

> In article <amhur7$fun$1...@paris.btinternet.com>,
> "Glenn Morton" <glenn....@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
> > One question. before I answer your post. Would you be willing to give
up
> > your belief in a global flood if you were convinced that the data didn't
> > support it? If not, then we are wasting our time. If so, then we can
> > continue without being wasteful.
>
> Just one quick note here: regardless of whether the Good Doctor is a
> True Believer or not, this sort of exchange is useful to the rest of us,
> and not in any sense a waste of time. Whether Sean will or will not
> (almost certainly the latter) change his views on the Flood, the point
> is to educate the audience about so-called flood geology.

I ask this question of all true believers because I want them to face up to
the question of whether or not they will be intellectually honest or not.
Anyone who ignores the data which they know of and which refutes their
belief system is guilty of suppressing the truth. I liken it to Romans 1,
which conservative Christians are eager to use to point at other people and
note, that if in their heart of hearts, they know that the data doesn't fit
their preconceived belief, if they ignore it, they are suppressing the
truth, and for them that constitutes doing so in unrighteousness (see
Romans 1:18)

>
> In fact, the point of public exchanges with True Believers is not to
> persuade the True Believer (they wouldn't be True Believers if that sort
> of thing worked...), but to let the rest of us -- lurkers, undecideds,
> etc., -- know what's wrong (and right, for that matter...) with the
> various arguments used, and what science actually says about things,
> and, most importantly, to prod the rest of us into thinking further
> about the issues.

That is a useful side effect, but the real struggle for the young-earther
and global flood advocate is really whether they will be honest with dealing
with the data. Their God demands honesty, yet they too often knowingly,
reject honesty and find comfort in the man-made theologies which they find
useful to 'tickle their ears'.

>
> This particular exchange is fascinating -- both because I'm learning a
> lot of geology from you (Glenn) and because I learn a lot about
> borderline True Believers and their Flood Geology arguments (from Sean,
> who is at least more complex than the average True Believer). Keep it
> up, please

Thank you for the kind words. I will, but I want Sean to know that if he
won't honestly deal with the data, our personal conversation will be a waste
of time, both for him and for me. Others might find it useful.

[John Harshman]

In article <amhur7$fun$1...@paris.btinternet.com>,
"Glenn Morton" <glenn....@btinternet.com> wrote:

Though I'm not a geologist, Il have a couple of things to add to your
response to Dr. Sean.

> One question. before I answer your post. Would you be willing to give up
> your belief in a global flood if you were convinced that the data didn't
> support it? If not, then we are wasting our time. If so, then we can
> continue without being wasteful.

[snip]

> > I personally sat down with an evolutionary geologist and asked him why
> > the contact zones between various geologic layers were generally so
> > crisp and why erosion had not removed entire sections of such layers
> > or preserved the undulations of prior surfaces. He explained that
> > subsequent catastrophic events leveled the previously uneven surface
> > of the lower layer(s).
>
> I don't ever buy stories like that. Nameless fellows who have been spoken
> with. Name the guy and lest see if he says what you thought he did. In
> other words, I am challenging you to produce evidence for what you say,
> which is no better nor worse than anyone in science should be treated. Who
> is this anonymous person? What is his e-mail so I can ask him about this
> conversation?

What's an "evolutionary geologist" anyway?

> When pressed to explain exactly how this
> > could happen since turbidites do not erode or significantly level
> > uneven surfaces, he said that many of the layers were formed
> > underwater where erosion problems are not as significant as they are
> > on exposed land surfaces.
>
> To me, this shows that you didn't speak with anyone knowledgeable in geology
> even if the guy was an evolutionist. Turbidites are deep water phenomenon,
> not surficial events. One never finds a turbidite on the earth's surface at
> the time the turbidite occurs. So once again, who is the nameless fellow?

And who says turbidites don't level or erode? Most turbidites come in
big series in which each successive turbidite is severely truncated by
the one above it.

[snip]

[Bigdakine]

>Subject: Re: Pitman's Pathetic Geology
>From: Sean...@juno.com (Sean Pitman M.D.)
>Date: 9/20/02 5:18 PM Hawaiian Standard Time
>Message-id: <fd67d42a.02092...@posting.google.com>
>

<back handed compliments snipped>

>That is, you did not explain, to my understanding

We're not sure thats possible. But we will give it the ole' college try.

at least (I
>may be really slow here, but bear with me), why the vast majority of
>the layers in the column are extremely flat relative to each other

Because most deposition takes place on fairly flat surfaces. What? You expect
deposition to occure primarily on steep slopes where gravity tries to pull
everything down? River beds, sea floors, lagoon beds, lake beds, estuary are
all relatively flat surfaces. These are the primary ares where water
transported sediment is carried.

And yes, there are erosional contacts between layer. Millions of them in the
rock record.. Try putting down your creationist comic books for once, and read
some legitimate texts regarding the Earth.. Where do you find erosional
contacts? One way is to expose formerly submerged areas which received water
transported sediment. And then submerge it again.

>without significant weathering at their contact zones. True, there do
>seem to be some examples of limited erosion to include rivers that may
>even affect other layers, but overall, the weathering of the various

What baloney!

Whole layers are erased from some geologic colum due to erosion.

>layers does not appear to be as widespread as one would expect given
>the effects of current erosion forces on exposed geologic surfaces.
>You describe some evidence of rain, some rivers, some seismic
>activity, but still, this doesn't seem to cause all that much general
>weathering in these layers.

Good grief. Erosion removes sediment. It also levels the erosional surface. A
good example of an erosional discontinuity is the angular uncomformity.

Your notions as to how pervasive discontinuities are or should be in the rock
record appear to be based on fables, not any actual much less *clinical*
knowledge.

Why aren't more uneven surfaces, to
>include hills, valleys, canyons, rivers, and generally evidence of the
>action of wind and rain, preserved in the geologic column? Why are
>the contact zones generally so very flat? I personally sat down with
>an evolutionary geologist

Oh good grief, its another one of those my best friend is a geologist story..

Got news for you, there is only one kind og geologist. The rest are charlatans.

and asked him why the contact zones between
>various geologic layers were generally so crisp and why erosion had
>not removed entire sections of such layers or preserved the
>undulations of prior surfaces.

Because, the unudulations of the prior surfaces were eroded.

Oh let me guess! You expect deposition to occur and bury whole mountains!

Of course, that hasn't happened. Noah's flood didn't occur.

<rest of gibberish snipped>

[Matt Silberstein]

In talk.origins I read this message from "Glenn Morton"
<glenn....@btinternet.com>:

>One question. before I answer your post. Would you be willing to give up
>your belief in a global flood if you were convinced that the data didn't
>support it? If not, then we are wasting our time. If so, then we can
>continue without being wasteful.
>Sean wrote:
>
>Sean Pitman M.D. <Sean...@juno.com> wrote in message
>news:fd67d42a.02092...@posting.google.com...

[snip]

>> I wrote:
>>
>> >One of the very foundations of evolution
>> >and popular science today is the "geologic
>> >column." This column is made up of layers of
>> >sedimentary rock and is supposed to have formed
>> >over millions and even billions of years.
>>
>>
>> You went off by saying that this is, "historically absolutely false."
>> You know as well as I do what I am talking about. I am not talking
>> about history here, but how modern evolutionary scientists view the
>> geologic column.
>
>No I don't know what you are talking about. You said that the foundation of
>evolution is the geologic column. That isn't true. The foundation of
>evolution was the observations of morphological change observed by Darwin.
>He has very little paleontology in his book and thus relied little on
>geology to develop evolution.

Actually, I think he is true. The discovery of the geological
column and such was instrumental in overthrowing the notion of a
young Earth. It was "foundational" in starting a revolution in
thought, a revolution whose beginnings end with Darwin. Darwin
needed the notion of an old Earth to even think about Common
Descent. And he made us of the plain fact of evolution recorded
in the column: the clear fact that life on Earth has changed
considerably over time. The age and sequence of the column is a
foundation of evolution.

>
> Geology, fossils and the geologic column that
>> contains them, are a huge part of the modern theory of evolution.

Now that is misleading to the extent of being wrong. Once you
have the notion of an old Earth, and we have multiple source of
evidence for an old Earth, you can deduce evolution (including
Common Descent) from existent life.

>> Please, I get referred to the geologic column and the fossil record
>> all the time as some of the most solid evidence for the "truth" of
>> evolution in existence. Don't tell me that my statement is false when
>> the geologic column is obviously one of the biggest pillars of
>> evolution around.

The fossil evidence *contained* in the column is one of four
distinct "pillars" of evidence for evolution. Whether it is the
biggest or not would be a useless question (IMO). It does the
best job at showing a particular aspect of the history of life:
what ancient life looked like. OTOH current genetic and
morphological evidence do a better job at showing relationships
between groups. The question of biggest pillar depends, I
suspect, on which aspect you find most interesting. My main
point, however, is that it is the fossils *in* the column that is
important, not the column itself.

[snip]

--

Matt Silberstein

Observation favors the stable, the persistent

[Glenn Morton]

Matt Silberstein <mat...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:rftrou862m4u6q0mp...@4ax.com...

> In talk.origins I read this message from "Glenn Morton"
> >

> >No I don't know what you are talking about. You said that the foundation
of
> >evolution is the geologic column. That isn't true. The foundation of
> >evolution was the observations of morphological change observed by
Darwin.
> >He has very little paleontology in his book and thus relied little on
> >geology to develop evolution.
>
> Actually, I think he is true. The discovery of the geological
> column and such was instrumental in overthrowing the notion of a
> young Earth. It was "foundational" in starting a revolution in
> thought, a revolution whose beginnings end with Darwin. Darwin
> needed the notion of an old Earth to even think about Common
> Descent. And he made us of the plain fact of evolution recorded
> in the column: the clear fact that life on Earth has changed
> considerably over time. The age and sequence of the column is a
> foundation of evolution.

I agree that the geologic column, which shows tremendoous morphological
change in the fossils contained in those ancient rocks is today a big
support for evolution, the paleontologic record was less well known in the
1840s when Darwin first began toying with the idea of evolution. The fact
that he didn't use much from the geologic column, to me is important. I
would agree that the fact that the geologic column granted him lots of time
did influence the development of evolution. He couldn't have been credible
without vast spans of time.

All that to say, I partly agree with you but partly don't. I may well be
wrong, but it seems to me that he based most of his work on his Beagle
observations.

[Mike Dunford]

Some piggybacking.

"Glenn Morton" <glenn....@btinternet.com> wrote in
news:aml04q$qi1$1...@knossos.btinternet.com:

> Matt Silberstein <mat...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
> news:rftrou862m4u6q0mp...@4ax.com...
>> In talk.origins I read this message from "Glenn Morton"
>> >
>> >No I don't know what you are talking about. You said that the
>> >foundation of evolution is the geologic column. That isn't
>> >true. The foundation of evolution was the observations of
>> >morphological change observed by Darwin. He has very little
>> >paleontology in his book and thus relied little on geology to
>> >develop evolution.

I don't think I agree with you about the role of geology in Darwin's
theory. Geology and paleontology are discussed in _Origin_. In the
1st edition, chapter ten ("Geological Succession") is devoted
entirely to a discussion of the support paleontology provides for
Darwin's argument, while chapters nine ("Imperfection of the
Geological Record") and eleven ("Geographical Distribution") also
contain at least some discussion of paleontology. So I don't think
that it's really accurate to say that there is "very little
paleontology" in _Origin_, although it is true that it is not the
primary focus of the argument.

>> Actually, I think he is true. The discovery of the geological
>> column and such was instrumental in overthrowing the notion of
>> a young Earth. It was "foundational" in starting a revolution
>> in thought, a revolution whose beginnings end with Darwin.
>> Darwin needed the notion of an old Earth to even think about
>> Common Descent. And he made us of the plain fact of evolution
>> recorded in the column: the clear fact that life on Earth has
>> changed considerably over time. The age and sequence of the
>> column is a foundation of evolution.

I think that it might make things a bit clearer if we distinguish
'common descent' from 'natural selection' here. One of the reasons
that paleontology does not play more of a role in _Origin_ than it
does is because, while it provides a great deal of the support for
common descent (the fact of evolution), it is not nearly as important
a part of natural selection (the theory of evolution). Since Darwin's
primary focus in _OOS_ was on natural selection, it makes sense that
he did not focus primarily on paleontology.

> I agree that the geologic column, which shows tremendoous
> morphological change in the fossils contained in those ancient
> rocks is today a big support for evolution, the paleontologic
> record was less well known in the 1840s when Darwin first began
> toying with the idea of evolution.

While the column was less well known in the 1840s and 1850s than it
is today, the changes in life over time displayed in the fossil
record had become clear enough that many (possibly most) of the
leading paleontologists of the day were concerned with figuring out
how species came into being -- the "species problem". The record
might not have been as well known as it is today, but it was
certainly known well enough that even die-hard opponents of Darwin
such as Richard Owen were starting to lean towards some type of
transmutation by the time Darwin published.

> The fact that he didn't use
> much from the geologic column, to me is important. I would agree
> that the fact that the geologic column granted him lots of time
> did influence the development of evolution. He couldn't have
> been credible without vast spans of time.

That is certainly true, and it was one of the reasons that he was
highly disappointed by Huxley's willingness to accept Kelvin's
limitations on the age of the earth.

> All that to say, I partly agree with you but partly don't.
> I may well be wrong, but it seems to me that he based most of his
> work on his Beagle observations.

Some of the most important of which were paleontological. In
particular, his observations regarding the fossil fauna of South
America and its resemblance to the current South American fauna
played a key role.

--Mike Dunford
--
It might not be much of a life in our terms, but it keeps several
species of anglerfish going... And who can judge anyway? In some
ultimate Freudian sense, what male could resist the fantasy of life
as a penis with a heart...
--Stephen Jay Gould

[Sean Pitman M.D.]

John Harshman

> And who says turbidites don't level or erode? Most turbidites come in
> big series in which each successive turbidite is severely truncated by
> the one above it.

Actually, if you have ever seen a reproduction of a turbiditic flow in
action, they do not erode the layer or layers below to any significant
degree, if at all. Because of this, the lines between each turbiditic
flow are generally as crisp and sharp as a razor blade. Each
successive turbidite is NOT severely truncated by the one above it.
It might seem logical, but in reality, this is not what happens.

I will repsond further to Glenn Morton's follow-up as soon as I get a
chance. It will take a bit more time than I have right now however.

Sean

[Stanley Friesen]

"Glenn Morton" <glenn....@btinternet.com> wrote:
>I agree that the geologic column, which shows tremendoous morphological
>change in the fossils contained in those ancient rocks is today a big
>support for evolution, the paleontologic record was less well known in the
>1840s when Darwin first began toying with the idea of evolution. The fact
>that he didn't use much from the geologic column, to me is important. I
>would agree that the fact that the geologic column granted him lots of time
>did influence the development of evolution. He couldn't have been credible
>without vast spans of time.
>
>All that to say, I partly agree with you but partly don't. I may well be
>wrong, but it seems to me that he based most of his work on his Beagle
>observations.
>

That and his breeding experiments. (And I suspect his barnacle
research).

[John Harshman]

In article <fd67d42a.0209...@posting.google.com>,

Sean...@juno.com (Sean Pitman M.D.) wrote:

> John Harshman
>
> > And who says turbidites don't level or erode? Most turbidites come in
> > big series in which each successive turbidite is severely truncated by
> > the one above it.
>
>
> Actually, if you have ever seen a reproduction of a turbiditic flow in
> action, they do not erode the layer or layers below to any significant
> degree, if at all. Because of this, the lines between each turbiditic
> flow are generally as crisp and sharp as a razor blade. Each
> successive turbidite is NOT severely truncated by the one above it.
> It might seem logical, but in reality, this is not what happens.

How many turbidites have you seen? Every one that I've seen is
truncated. Usually there are several dozen exposed in a series, and none
of them makes it all the way to really fine particles. I suggest reading
a sedimentology text for confirmation.

Also you have to ask yourself why turbidites wouldn't erode soft
sediments (which is what they are generally deposited on -- the
turbidity flows of past years. They regularly break trans-Atlantic
cables, for instance.

> I will repsond further to Glenn Morton's follow-up as soon as I get a
> chance. It will take a bit more time than I have right now however.

Have you considered the possibility that your worldview is seriously
incorrect? The earth is billions of years old. So is life. The life of
the Cambrian is radically unlike current life, but biotas become
successively more and more like the current biota as we get closer to
the present. Why?

[Bigdakine]

>Subject: Re: Pitman's Pathetic Geology.

>From: Sean...@juno.com (Sean Pitman M.D.)

>Date: 9/23/02 9:35 AM Hawaiian Standard Time
>Message-id: <fd67d42a.0209...@posting.google.com>

>
>John Harshman
>
>> And who says turbidites don't level or erode? Most turbidites come in
>> big series in which each successive turbidite is severely truncated by
>> the one above it.
>
>
>Actually, if you have ever seen a reproduction of a turbiditic flow in
>action, they do not erode the layer or layers below to any significant
>degree, if at all. Because of this, the lines between each turbiditic
>flow are generally as crisp and sharp as a razor blade. Each
>successive turbidite is NOT severely truncated by the one above it.
>It might seem logical, but in reality, this is not what happens.

Reference?

And what does *NOT SEVERELY* mean?

Considering the speed of turbidity flows, such as one generated on the Grand
Banks was determined based on the rupturing of trans-atlantic cables, your
claims strain credulity. And channelized sediment fan aprons also demonstrate
the scouring abilities of turbidity currents.

Sure it may be possible to construct an experiment, where little erosion of the
substrate takes place..

But..

what is the substrate?

what are the parameters of the flow i.e., density, Reynolds number, Froude
number etc..

And thus do the experiment(s) you're referencing scale correctly to geological
turbidity flows?

For example, does the ratio of the yeild stress of the substrate and basal drag
stress generated by the current compare favroably with geological flows?

[lmurata]

Sean...@juno.com (Sean Pitman M.D.) wrote in message news:<fd67d42a.0209...@posting.google.com>...

Sean,

Can you please tell us how long will this take? On day? Two days?
Three days? One week? One month? One year?

> Sean

[sds]

"Stanley Friesen" <sar...@friesen.net> wrote in message
news:nu7pousi2u5ollj0o...@4ax.com...

What's forming faster than erosion can destroy them? I'm lost. I thought
the issue was the sedimentary layers of the geologic column. How does mount
ain uplifting form new layers to be eroded away?

I'm also curious - when was that last major earthquake you mentioned?

[Noelie S. Alito]

"John Harshman" <harshman....@sjm.infi.net> wrote in message
news:harshman.diespamdie-...@news.infinet.mindspring.com...

> In article <fd67d42a.0209...@posting.google.com>,
> Sean...@juno.com (Sean Pitman M.D.) wrote:
>
> > John Harshman
> >
> > > And who says turbidites don't level or erode? Most turbidites come in
> > > big series in which each successive turbidite is severely truncated by
> > > the one above it.
> >
> >
> > Actually, if you have ever seen a reproduction of a turbiditic flow in
> > action, they do not erode the layer or layers below to any significant
> > degree, if at all. Because of this, the lines between each turbiditic
> > flow are generally as crisp and sharp as a razor blade. Each
> > successive turbidite is NOT severely truncated by the one above it.
> > It might seem logical, but in reality, this is not what happens.
>
> How many turbidites have you seen? Every one that I've seen is
> truncated. Usually there are several dozen exposed in a series, and none
> of them makes it all the way to really fine particles. I suggest reading
> a sedimentology text for confirmation.

I recall seeing a [picture of a] sequence in my sed geo class
which showed turbidites interleaved with pelagic layers. This
would be possible in remote spots which don't get frequent
turbidites. IIRC, the point of that particular lecture was that
these meter+ turbidites, largely formed in a matter of hours,
were interleaved with pelagic (deep ocean) deposits where
a few cm's represented thousands of years of deposition.
(Presumably even more time elapsed between turbidity currents
because, as you point out, they can take off the top of fine
sediment in their paths, unless the flow was laminar--but
wouldn't "laminar turbidity currents" be an oxymoron?)

> Also you have to ask yourself why turbidites wouldn't erode soft
> sediments (which is what they are generally deposited on -- the
> turbidity flows of past years. They regularly break trans-Atlantic
> cables, for instance.

Weren't turbidity currents slower before The Fall?

> > I will repsond further to Glenn Morton's follow-up as soon as I get a
> > chance. It will take a bit more time than I have right now however.
>
> Have you considered the possibility that your worldview is seriously
> incorrect? The earth is billions of years old. So is life. The life of
> the Cambrian is radically unlike current life, but biotas become
> successively more and more like the current biota as we get closer to
> the present. Why?

The question is, will he leave his geo commentary up on the web
until absolutely shown, point-by-point, everywhere he is wrong,
or will he take it down while considering his refutation of professional
geologists.

Noelie
--
"Geologists think about sex all the time." --EFMcBride

[Stanley Friesen]

"sds" <s...@mp3.com> wrote:
>> Yep, Everest is *still* being uplifted. So are the local mountains here
>> (Los Angeles). In the last major earthquake here, one local mountain
>> increased in height several feet in a few tens of seconds. These
>> features are so new they have not had time to erode - indeed they are
>> currently forming faster than erosion can destroy them.
>
>What's forming faster than erosion can destroy them? I'm lost.

Mountains, to start with.

>I thought
>the issue was the sedimentary layers of the geologic column.

It was the shape and extent thereof that was under discussion, AFAIK.

>How does mountain uplifting form new layers to be eroded away?

The sediment eroded off of the mountains is usually deposited somewhere
near the coast (on one side or the other). Among the fastest
sedimentation rates today are in the Ganges Delta, where the sediment
from the Himalayas is being deposited.

>
>I'm also curious - when was that last major earthquake you mentioned?

Some years back: up in San Fernando Valley.

[sds]

"Stanley Friesen" <sar...@friesen.net> wrote in message

news:pr42pu8ej0se7h8jo...@4ax.com...

> "sds" <s...@mp3.com> wrote:
> >> Yep, Everest is *still* being uplifted. So are the local mountains
here
> >> (Los Angeles). In the last major earthquake here, one local mountain
> >> increased in height several feet in a few tens of seconds. These
> >> features are so new they have not had time to erode - indeed they are
> >> currently forming faster than erosion can destroy them.
> >
> >What's forming faster than erosion can destroy them? I'm lost.
>
> Mountains, to start with.
>
> >I thought
> >the issue was the sedimentary layers of the geologic column.
>
> It was the shape and extent thereof that was under discussion, AFAIK.
>
> >How does mountain uplifting form new layers to be eroded away?
>
> The sediment eroded off of the mountains is usually deposited somewhere
> near the coast (on one side or the other). Among the fastest
> sedimentation rates today are in the Ganges Delta, where the sediment
> from the Himalayas is being deposited.

I think the point originally was focused on the layers on *top* of the
mountain. How could sediment on a mountain *top* (e.g., Everest) withstand
millions of years of that rapid erosion you just talked about?

Glenn Morton, I understand the answer to this could be as simple as "there
was a whole bunch of sediment to 'start' with". I know the logic of this
question is sort of a "pet peeve" of yours. (BTW, it's beside the point
here, but I disagree with your criticism of those who ask things like "how
could sediment accumulate in the ocean for millions of years without filling
it up". When I get time, I might offer up a friendly argument about that.)

Now let me try to make something as clear as possible here. Friesen, Morton,
and whoever else is out there - I don't want to "get off on the wrong foot"
here. The last thing I am is a geologist. I'm asking this question about
mountain erosion from a point of ignorance and I know that. I appreciate
your help in answering this. If you can't (or if it's just too cumbersome to
try to answer via this forum) that's fine too. I'll simply add it to the
list of "things I don't know" which I'm close to submitting for inclusion in
the Guinness Book under 'longest list'.

[Matt Silberstein]

In talk.origins I read this message from "sds" <s...@mp3.com>:

[snip]

>I think the point originally was focused on the layers on *top* of the
>mountain. How could sediment on a mountain *top* (e.g., Everest) withstand
>millions of years of that rapid erosion you just talked about?
>
>Glenn Morton, I understand the answer to this could be as simple as "there
>was a whole bunch of sediment to 'start' with". I know the logic of this
>question is sort of a "pet peeve" of yours.

There was a whole bunch there before. We can see evidence of that
erosion from just below the peak all the way to the ocean.

[Glenn Morton]

sds <s...@mp3.com> wrote in message
news:amsjcb$td5$1...@slb4.atl.mindspring.net...

> I think the point originally was focused on the layers on *top* of the
> mountain. How could sediment on a mountain *top* (e.g., Everest) withstand
> millions of years of that rapid erosion you just talked about?
>
> Glenn Morton, I understand the answer to this could be as simple as "there
> was a whole bunch of sediment to 'start' with". I know the logic of this
> question is sort of a "pet peeve" of yours. (BTW, it's beside the point
> here, but I disagree with your criticism of those who ask things like "how
> could sediment accumulate in the ocean for millions of years without
filling
> it up". When I get time, I might offer up a friendly argument about
that.)

I will look forward to the critique, but please send me an e-mail when you
do it. I don't always monitor T.O.

The real issue is with the Everest sediment concerns how much has been
removed, not how much is left to be removed. YECs ask the wrong question or
pull a sleight of hand on this issue. The time erosion has been taking place
can only be determined by how rapidly erosion occurs and how much has
already been removed. If there is only 1 foot left to be eroded from an
area and it is known that it erodes at a rate of 1 foot erosion per
thousand years, it is perfectly logical to conclude that in 1000 years,
there will be no sediment. It is perfectly ILLOGICAL to conclude that the
erosion has been occurring for only 1000 years. People like Austin should
know better. Gish, maybe not.

>
> Now let me try to make something as clear as possible here. Friesen,
Morton,
> and whoever else is out there - I don't want to "get off on the wrong
foot"
> here. The last thing I am is a geologist. I'm asking this question about
> mountain erosion from a point of ignorance and I know that. I appreciate
> your help in answering this. If you can't (or if it's just too cumbersome
to
> try to answer via this forum) that's fine too. I'll simply add it to the
> list of "things I don't know" which I'm close to submitting for inclusion
in
> the Guinness Book under 'longest list'.

You aren't off on the wrong foot. The fact that you know you aren't a
geologist already separates you from the YECs, who don't seem to realize
that simple fact.

[Glenn Morton]

Sean Pitman M.D. <Sean...@juno.com> wrote in message

news:fd67d42a.0209...@posting.google.com...

> John Harshman
>
> > And who says turbidites don't level or erode? Most turbidites come in
> > big series in which each successive turbidite is severely truncated by
> > the one above it.
>
>
> Actually, if you have ever seen a reproduction of a turbiditic flow in
> action, they do not erode the layer or layers below to any significant
> degree, if at all. Because of this, the lines between each turbiditic
> flow are generally as crisp and sharp as a razor blade. Each
> successive turbidite is NOT severely truncated by the one above it.
> It might seem logical, but in reality, this is not what happens

Flute marks and grooves at the sandstone base are a common feature of
turbiditic layers. These are a form of erosion.

[Stanley Friesen]

"sds" <s...@mp3.com> wrote:

>
>"Stanley Friesen" <sar...@friesen.net> wrote in message
>news:pr42pu8ej0se7h8jo...@4ax.com...

>> Mountains, to start with.
>> ...

>> The sediment eroded off of the mountains is usually deposited somewhere
>> near the coast (on one side or the other). Among the fastest
>> sedimentation rates today are in the Ganges Delta, where the sediment
>> from the Himalayas is being deposited.
>
>I think the point originally was focused on the layers on *top* of the
>mountain. How could sediment on a mountain *top* (e.g., Everest) withstand
>millions of years of that rapid erosion you just talked about?

By being originally buried under many thousands of feet of *additional*
sediment that has since been eroded away.

>
>Glenn Morton, I understand the answer to this could be as simple as "there
>was a whole bunch of sediment to 'start' with".

Yep, and there is even independent evidence of such elsewhere. That is,
in areas not as deeply eroded this greater thickness of sediment is in
fact present.

[Sean Pitman M.D.]

Glenn Morton

> One question. before I answer your post. Would you be willing to give up
> your belief in a global flood if you were convinced that the data didn't
> support it? If not, then we are wasting our time. If so, then we can
> continue without being wasteful.

Sure. Of course the evidence that you find so convincing, given your
specific education in this field, I might be too dull witted or
limited as far as my background to understand or find convincing.
However, I will give it an honest attempt. Then, even if I am not
convinced, it is still not a "waist" of time since others will also
read this and be convinced by your ideas even if I never am sharp
enough to ever catch on. So, discussions such as this are never
really a waist.

> Sean wrote:
>
> > However, the most significant question I have concerning the "vast
> > ages" of the geologic column, you did not clearly answer. At least I
> > continue to be "confused" even after reading your links to your
> > papers. That is, you did not explain, to my understanding at least (I
> > may be really slow here, but bear with me), why the vast majority of
> > the layers in the column are extremely flat relative to each other
> > without significant weathering at their contact zones. True, there do
> > seem to be some examples of limited erosion to include rivers that may
> > even affect other layers, but overall, the weathering of the various
> > layers does not appear to be as widespread as one would expect given
> > the effects of current erosion forces on exposed geologic surfaces.
>
> If you would understand some of the stuff that I posted on my web page like
> http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/northseatime.htm
>
> You would understand that the basal cretaceous unconformity in the North Sea
> is covers hundreds of thousands of square kilometers. It just isn't a local
> erosion. In the Gulf of Mexico there is a middle Cretaceous unconformity
> which is everywhere over the Gulf region. Even onshore in the US there are
> widespread unconformities. You should go read an old article, L.L.Sloss,
> "Sequences in Cratonic Interior of North America", Bulletin of the GSA,
> 74, (1963), circa p. 96

I went to your web page detailing the North Sea conformity. As part of
your intro you said, "Unconformities are evidence of erosion between
two strata and would take much time if the rocks were hard while they
were being eroded." There are a couple questions I have concerning
this statement as it compares to the seismic data you present.

If you are arguing that long periods of time are required for these
formations, how can you support yourself by assuming long periods of
time in your argument to begin with? This seems a bit circular to me.
You made a circular assumption by saying, "IF the rocks were hard."
The assumption that the sediments were already hard is an assumption
based on the idea they they formed over very long periods of time.
You cannot use this assumption when the argument at hand is
questioning the idea that they did form over long periods of time. Of
course if the sediments were recently laid down in a rapid timeframe,
then the obvious erosion might not be such a problem. Obviously
erosion took place. It is not so obvious to me that this erosion
could not happen rapidly.

I also have some questions concerning the various layers themselves.
Consider, for example, the Jurassic layer in your first figure. The
various sedimentary lines that form the Jurassic are very much in a
U-shape. I have seen similar shapes and even hair pin turns in such
sedimentary layers. It is interesting to me that these hair-pin turns
have no evidence of rock fracture. If you try to bend a solid rock,
it simply won't bend. It will break and crumble first. How do you
explain the absence of fractures in such hair-pin turns. Are such
fractures found in this Jurassic U-shaped layer that you say was solid
rock by the time of its erosion? It seems rather obvious to me that
these layers were bent after all of them had been laid down. If the
bending process had occurred before all of them had been laid down,
the subsequent layers would not be bent.

If my hypotheses, as present so far, hold true in your eyes, let me
pose a scenario and then you shoot it down... ok? What if all the
layers in this area were formed rapidly on a flat surface? They would
still be soft for a good while and thus flexible. Then, what if some
huge local seismic event occurred soon after their formation that bent
them into hills and valleys? There would be no evidence of rock
fracture since all the layers would still be flexible or malleable.
Then, what if this seismic event cause huge tidal actions in the local
area. Such large tidal forces traveling rapidly across the newly
formed layers might cause very rapid erosion to take place, thus
leveling the hills described in your diagram and filling in the
overlying area with parallel layers of sediment as is portrayed in
your diagram. All the contact zones between the various layers would
be crisp in this scenario, without much evidence of long surface
exposure or general erosion.

Is this scenario impossible for some reason? I'm sure that it is, but
I cannot for the life of me figure out why not. Please explain.

> Now, even today the dip of the strata under Dallas Texas is only about 3-4
> degrees towards the Gulf of Mexico. If new deposition covered Dallas, the
> discordance between the two layers would not be noticeable on most outcrops.
> Things would look parallel. That is part of your problem. You think the
> Grand Canyon is representative of the rest of the world. It isn't.

No, I do not think that the Grand Canyon is just like every other area
of the geologic column in the world. However, it does represent a
significant portion of what the column looks like in the rest of the
world. Most of the layers in the geologic column are generally
parallel with respect to each other. Even so, this is not my main
concern. My main problem is is with the contact zones between each of
the layers. They are even and are generally parallel with the contact
zones above and below given a perpendicular line drawn between them.
They lines of contact are also generally very crisp and even, without
evidence of long surface exposure. This observation can be seen a lot
more places than the Grand Canyon. Please explain the existence of
such crisp contact zones. Evidence that non-crisp contact zones exist
in some places does not explain their overwhelming presence in most
places.

> And even
> in the Grand Canyon, there are cave and karsts (sink holes), which contain
> sediment from layers which no longer cover Arizona.
> "The breccia pipes formed as sedimentary strata collapsed into
> dissolution caverns in the underlying Mississippian Redwall Limestone.
> Upward stoping through the upper Paleozoic and lower Mesozoic strata,
> involving units as high as the Triassic Chinle Formation." ~ Karen J.
> Wenrich and Peter W. Huntoon, "Breccia Pipes and Associated
> mineralization in the Grand Canyon Region, Northern Arizona," Geology of
> the Grand Canyon, Northern Arizona, 28th Int. Geol. Congress, Field Trip
> Guide Book, (Washington: AGU, 1989), p. 212
>
> The Chnle formation has almost totally been removed from the Grand Canyon
> area by erosion. Since the outcrop of it on the Southeast side of the
> Canyon at Cedar Mesa is several hundred feet above the present topography,
> we know that that much erosion at a minimum has taken place. We know that
> the caves formed and collapsed prior to the erosion of the Triassic strata.

Now, are you saying that the Chinle formation no longer covers areas
of Arizona or that it no longer covers the Grand Canyon? Obviously it
was eroded from the Grand Canyon, or else there wouldn't be a canyon.
However, its presents can still be found, as you noted, on the
southeast side. But, how do you know that the caves had to have
formed and collapsed, "prior to the erosion of the Triassic strata"?
What if the Triassic strata had formed, then been eroded down to the
level of the Chinle Formation, which then collapsed into the
underlying caves?

As far as the formation of the caves, is it impossible for caves to
form underground rapidly if given enough water flow or acidity? Some
suggest that many limestone caves (10-15%), such as Carlsbad Cave, are
formed with the use of sulfuric acid instead of the much weaker
carbonic acid that is usually thought to form such limestone caves. I
have been informed, and if wrong I'm sure you will correct me, that
geologists are not in complete agreement on the exact process required
to formed limestone caves. If the sediments were still relatively
soft, rapid water flow with high acidity would seems to me to be
clearly capable of creating such caverns with resulting collapses of
the sediments above. In fact, I would expect it. How is this
scenario misguided?

> search on redwall pipe karst in file lngflood.txt
> "1. An extensive karst developed on the emergent Redwall surface
> during Late Mississippian time. The Grand Canyon breccia pipes are
> associated with this Mississippian karst; cavities from this karst served
> as nucleation points for upward stoping. The modern Yucatan karst
> provides an excellent analogue for Late Mississippian conditions in the
> Grand Canyon."Karen J. Wenrich and Peter W. Huntoon, "Breccia Pipes and
> Associated mineralization in the Grand Canyon Region, Northern Arizona,"
> Geology of the Grand Canyon, Northern Arizona, 28th Int. Geol. Congress,

If I am correct in this understanding, a karst is another term for
pipe-like fault or cave. Why can't such caves form rapidly
underground?... especially following a seismic event and rapid
flooding? Some publications have suggested that karst formation could
be rapid secondary to the action of sulfuric acid.

Hill, C.A., 1990. Sulfuric acid speleogenesis of Carlsbad Cavern and
its relationship to hydrocarbons, Delaware Basin, New Mexico and
Texas. American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin,
74:1685–1694.

> > You describe some evidence of rain, some rivers, some seismic
> > activity, but still, this doesn't seem to cause all that much general
> > weathering in these layers. Why aren't more uneven surfaces, to
> > include hills, valleys, canyons, rivers, and generally evidence of the
> > action of wind and rain, preserved in the geologic column? Why are
> > the contact zones generally so very flat?
>
> There are hundred foot deep channels in the Grand Canyon area. You simply
> haven't been told about them or you have simply believed what you have been
> taught. Maybe you don't think this is significant erosion but it is.
> Consider the size of some of the Grand Canyon channels:

You don't seem to get my question. I understand that there are deep
channels in the geologic column. These are to be expected with rapid
formation and a quick run-off of the waters that formed these layers.
The same thing could happen over long periods of time. Rivers could
slowly form canyons and channels as the ones you describe. As these
rivers were slowly carving away their canyons, what was happening to
the surrounding surface of the ground during this time? Was it not
being eroded as well? Was rain and wind not changing the landscape
over the time that this river carved out its canyon over thousands or
millions of years? Where is the evidence of this erosion between the
contact zones of the various layers that surround the rivers and
canyons that you speak of? The contact zones are so crisp and even
relative to each other. It must have been an extremely flat and
protected place millions of years ago.

> Erosional canyons and hills at top of Esplanade sandstone
> locality Channel depth height width
> Badger Canyon 70' 300'
> Bunker Trail ' 3' '
> Kaibob Trail 46' 100'
> Hermit Trail 40' 75'
> Topocoba Trail 35' 60-80'
> Havasu Canyon 47' 44' 80-100'
> Thunder River Trail 38' 150'
> Kanab Canyon ' 28' 400'
> National Canyon 45' 114' 1000'
> ~George H. Billingsley and Edwin D. McKee, "Erosion Surfaces", in
> Edwin McKee, The Supai Group of Grand Canyon, GS Professional
> Paper 1173, (1982), p. 175
>
> But here I am doing YOUR homework for you, doing research YOU ought to do
> rather than me spoonfeeding you. Don't be like most creationists who are
> too afraid or lazy to actually go look at geologic data in both text-books
> and the field. And don't be like most creationists who think everyone other
> than creationists are lying to them about the facts.

I am not afraid or lazy here. Also I do not think that geologists who
believe in evolution are liars. I believe that they truthfully report
the facts. I agree with you that these geologic formations exist. I
do not necessarily understand or interpret them the way you do
however. I do not understand that they had to have taken eons of time
to form. In short, I just do not understand the long-time-span
significance of this erosion that you speak of since it seems to me
that such formations could easily be formed rapidly. However, the
general crispness of the contact zones between these layers shows a
lack of long exposure to the effects of wind, rain, etc. that is
required for your position to hold. Or so it seems to me.

> > I personally sat down with an evolutionary geologist and asked him why
> > the contact zones between various geologic layers were generally so
> > crisp and why erosion had not removed entire sections of such layers
> > or preserved the undulations of prior surfaces. He explained that
> > subsequent catastrophic events leveled the previously uneven surface
> > of the lower layer(s).
>
> I don't ever buy stories like that. Nameless fellows who have been spoken
> with. Name the guy and lest see if he says what you thought he did. In
> other words, I am challenging you to produce evidence for what you say,
> which is no better nor worse than anyone in science should be treated. Who
> is this anonymous person? What is his e-mail so I can ask him about this
> conversation?

He is not involved in this discussion, so I am not going to make his
name or especially e-mail address public without his permission. You
may disbelieve that I talked to such a person, but that is besides the
point. I only mentioned this event in order to present some sort of
argument to explain your position. I then challenge that argument.
If this argument is in fact a misrepresentation of your position, then
say so. It is the argument here that is important, not the person.

> >When pressed to explain exactly how this
> > could happen since turbidites do not erode or significantly level
> > uneven surfaces, he said that many of the layers were formed
> > underwater where erosion problems are not as significant as they are
> > on exposed land surfaces.
>
> To me, this shows that you didn't speak with anyone knowledgeable in geology
> even if the guy was an evolutionist. Turbidites are deep water phenomenon,
> not surficial events. One never finds a turbidite on the earth's surface at
> the time the turbidite occurs. So once again, who is the nameless fellow?

He never said that turbidites were "surface" events nor did I get that
impression from him. He agreed with you that they were a "deep water
phenomenon." So, I don't know where you got confused here. And no,
I'm not revealing his name in this forum. It is enough that he has
agreed with your position in every particular so far.

> > But not all of the layers are thought to
> > have been constantly protected by overlying water. Even the ones that
> > are thought to primarily represent marine deposits seem too uniform
> > over too large an area to represent such long ages. I pressed him
> > further to explain the general uniformity and crispness of the contact
> > zones of even the layers exposed to the forces of wind and rain over
> > millions of years. He finally said that no one really knew the answer
> > to this question and that this was a problem, but no one really thinks
> > it is significant.
>
> I have probably drilled 100 oil wells in my career (most have been offshore
> where they are extremely expensive and thus few are drilled). Most contacts
> in the geologic column are NOT sharp. They almost always grade into the
> next deposit. There are exceptions of course but what you say is false. I
> will post a log to my web page.
> http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/logNS2.jpg

I went to the link you gave, and it showed changes in the "velocity of
sound" as it is propagated through various layers of the geologic
column. This is not what I am talking about when I use the words
"sharp" or "crisp" when speaking of the contact zones between various
layers. Please, show me a VISUAL example of the general "melding" of
contact zones between layers in the geologic column. An example of
fuzzy sound wave propagations doesn't do the job. As far as I have
ever noted the contact zones between the various layers of the
geologic column ARE sharp and crisp. Since I am not a geologist
however, please do show me the error of my thinking here.

> The red arrows are where sharp breaks in rock properties occur. All other
> transitions, when compared to both velocity of sound and the gamma ray
> properties are transitional.

Exactly my point. The "properties" of rocks may be very similar in
different layers, and yet visually it is very clear that the contact
zones that separate the layers are as thin and crisp as if sheets of
glass where laid one on top of the other. The contact zones are
smooth. If all the layers above were removed and one could walk upon
a given layer, it would be as smooth as a newly paved parking lot, for
hundreds and thousands of square kilometers. There might be areas of
local river or canyon formation, but the rest of the surface would
have no effect of long exposure to wind or rain.

> > Well, for me it is significant because I cannot understand it using a
> > paradigm of punctuated formation that took hundreds of millions of
> > years. I do not see enough erosion of the layers. I have talked to
> > several geologists and no one has yet given me a clear explanation for
> > the crisp contact zones and the general uniform evenness of the
> > various layers within the geologic column.
>
> Crisp zones in deep water sediment can easily be due to a landslide of sand
> when ends up on top of a muddy zone. A river which floods and spreads sand
> over the interdistributary bays (which contain mostly mud) can produce
> sharp sand/shale boundaries. There is simply nothing unusual about it. We
> have seen such things form in recent Mississippi River floods. Shoot, even
> the Red River of Oklahoma/Texas where it enters Lake Texoma produces the
> same thing. There is no mystery except why you want this to be a mystery.

This crispness between contact zones of various layers is not only
found between layers of marine origin, but is also found between
layers that supposedly formed while exposed to surface forces of
erosion such as wind and rain. Your evidence of river and canyon
formation confirms this notion. Even long covered (by the ocean
depths) marine sediments should show more unevenness at their contact
zones if in fact they were formed over vast periods of time. The
extreme relatively flatness seems inconsistent to me. I go snorkeling
on occasion. So far I have found to ocean floor that is a flat and
even as the ones found in the geologic column.

> > Oh, by the way, I do not believe, nor do I think most "creationists"
> > believe that the entire column was formed in less than one year or by
> > a single event such as a "global flood." I think that the entire
> > column appears to have been formed "relatively" quickly taking perhaps
> > thousands of years to form, but not millions. I simply do not see
> > enough erosion of the layers to represent millions of years.
>
> To erode the limestone and form caves of the Mississippian Redwall strata of
> the Grand Canyon would take hundreds of thousands of years. Appeals by some
> creationists, like Austin that highly acidic waters flowed through the area
> are simply straw grasps because no one has ever seen such a thing.

Again, you cannot use as a supporting argument in your favor, the very
idea that is being challenged. There are two things that you assume
to be true without supporting yourself. You assume that the
Mississippian Redwall was already solid rock by the time the caves
were formed. And secondly, who says that given enough flow that water
cannot erode away such caves in a rapid timeframe? Once, during an
especially heavy rainy season, the lake behind the Hoover Damn reached
dangerous levels. The spillways had to be opened for a few days a
full velocity. After just a few days, the damage to these spillways
was dramatic. These spillways were carved through solid rock and
lined with reinforced concrete and yet the rushing waters had carved
out huge cavities into the walls of these spillways. The force of a
large amount of rushing water is truly amazing. Caves can be formed
very rapidly, even in solid rock. Just imagine what would happen if
the layers were not solid, but were relatively soft.

> > Some of
> > it seems to me to have been formed extremely quickly, but by no means
> > all of it. Even evolutionary geologists think that the majority of
> > the layers within the geologic column were formed by catastrophic
> > events. Of course it is believed that these events were separated by
> > very long periods of relative calm. I just don't see the erosive
> > evidence to back up such long separation times between the events.
>
> I must absolutely disagree with you here. I work in the geoscience industry.
> Most of my compatriots believe that features acting today produced the
> geologic column. None of these features are 'catastrophic' in the sense you
> seem to use it. We do believe that a big hurricane can produce more
> sedimentation than 100 years of normal deposition, but a hurricane is not a
> global catastrophe. We do believe that a landslide will cause more change
> to topography than a century of erosion, but a landslide is not a
> catastrophe in the sense you are using it at all. We do believe that a
> turbidite will deposit more sediment than 100 years of slow deposition, but
> that too isn't a catastrophe in your sense. These are all normal things,
> which happen at rates which are predictable over millennia and millions of
> years. So, you are wrong in your belief of what geoscientists hold.

I don't see this. Consider the following statements:

RECORD IS CATASTROPHIC, DAVID M. RAUP, Chicago Field Museum, Univ. of
Chicago, "A great deal has changed, however, and contemporary
geologists and paleontologists now generally accept catastrophe as a
'way of life' although they may avoid the word catastrophe... The
periods of relative quiet contribute only a small part of the record.
The days are almost gone when a geologist looks at such a sequence,
measures its thickness, estimates the total amount of elapsed time,
and then divides one by the other to compute the rate of deposition in
centimeters per thousand years. The nineteenth century idea of
uniformitarianism and gradualism still exist in popular treatments of
geology, in some museum exhibits, and in lower level textbooks....one
can hardly blame the creationists for having the idea that the
conventional wisdom in geology is still a noncatastrophic one." Field
Museum of Natural History Bulletin (Vol.54, March 1983), p.2 1

"THE RULE", ROBERT H. DOTT, Presidential Address To Society of
Economic Paleontologists & Mineralogists, "I hope I have convinced you
that the sedimentary record is largely a record of episodic events
rather than being uniformly continuous. My message is that episodicity
is the rule, not the exception. We need to shed those lingering
subconscious constraints of old uniformitarian thinking." Geotimes,
Nov. 1982, p.16

CATACLYSMIC BURIAL, JOHN R. HORNER, "...there were 30 million fossil
fragments in that area. At a conservative estimate, we had discovered
the tomb of 10,000 dinosaurs ...there was a flood. This was no
ordinary spring flood from one of the streams in the area but a
catastrophic inundation. ... That's our best explanation. It seems to
make the most sense, and on the basis of it we believe that this was a
living, breathing group of dinosaurs destroyed in one catastrophic
moment." DIGGING DINOSAURS, 1988, p.131

EDWIN D. MCKEE, "The chief significance of ripple lamination in the
geologic record is that it is an indicator of environments involving
large and rapid sand accumulation… areas where addition of new sand
normally is at a slow rate have little chance of developing into
superimposed ripple lamination…In contrast, areas in which sand
accumulates periodically but rapidly, as in river flood plains were
sand laden waters of strong floods suddenly lose velocity are very
favorable for building up ripple laminated deposits." Primary
Sedimentary Structures and Their Hydrodynamic Interpretation, Society
of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists, p.107.

ADOLF SClLACHER, Geoiogisches Inst., Univ. Frankfurt, "This proves
instantaneous deposition of the individual beds, as postulated by the
turbidity-current theory....the sandy layers of the Flysch did not
accumulate gradually but were cast instantaneously by turbidity
currents each bed in its entire thickness, in a matter of hours or
less." Journal of Geology, Vol. 70, p. 227.

ALAN V. JOPLING, Dept. of Geology, Harvard, "it is reasonable to
postulate a very rapid rate of deposition; that is a single lamina
would probably be deposited in a period of seconds or minutes rather
than in a period of hours. ...there is factual evidence from both
field observation and experiment that laminae composed of bed material
are commonly deposited by current action within a period of seconds or
minutes." Some Deductions on the Temporal Significance of Laminae,
Journal of Sedimentary Petrology, Vol. 36, No. 4, pp.880-887.

"Hanging from a ceiling beam in the 40-year-old building's basement
are several rows of formations not usually seen so close to ground
level. Stalactites. Yep, stalactites more than 100 of the squiggly,
slippery rock formations that thousands of people pay to see in places
named Carlsbad and Mammoth....They are natural cave ornaments, pure
and simple....Deputy Chief Ray Hawkins has been parking in the
basement of the building at Harwood and Main streets since the 1960s
and can't remember a time when the mineralsickles weren't hanging
around." Dallas Morning News, 4/4/1994, p. 13A

> > Your argument concerning river formation and river deltas seems pretty
> > reasonable to me. My understanding on this issue is admittedly from
> > limited and biased sources, all in favor of the rapid formation of the
> > geologic column. For now, the evidence, as you present it, seems to
> > make some pretty good sense. I will have to study this particular
> > issue in more detail.
>
> Thank you. The problem you have is the one I had when I was a young-earth
> creationist. I, like you, only read one side of the issue. And when I did
> read the other side, I read the geological literature with an attitude that
> I was going to find what they did wrong rather than with an attitude of
> learning. Of course, the fact that all my circle of friends were also
> telling me that the earth was young didn't help me believe any contradictory
> data.

I agree. It is always good to consider the opposing side of any issue
from the actual people who think differently than you do. Don't
forget to keep doing that. You could still be wrong you know... just
like me. No one ever "arrives" at a full understanding of truth. If
given the proper evidence, you might have to admit error yet again
and, God forbid, become a dreaded YEC again. AHHHHhhhhhhhhrghft! ; )
Of course I might have to become an evolutionist. It is what all
honest seekers for truth set themselves up for... failure.

> > As far as describing the extent of the geologic column, I did not
> > intend to be indicating that the geologic column covered every square
> > inch of the globe. Obviously it does not.
>
> I stand corrected.
>
> > By saying that it
> > "generally" covered the entire globe, I did not mean that it covered
> > the whole globe completely but that it could in fact be found all over
> > it "generally". to include such places as the Mountains of Everest.
> > Also, I did not mean to indicate that all of the layers of the
> > geologic column existed all over the globe or even in any one
> > particular place, although, as you say, there may be several places
> > where much or all of it does exist. The fact remains however that
> > many of the greatest mountains in the world have at least some portion
> > of the geologic column on top of them. This seems strange to me
> > considering that erosion rates are higher on mountains. How could
> > mountains, that have withstood hundreds of millions of years of
> > erosion, still be covered by even a small portion of the relatively
> > soft geologic column that represents a long ago time when this
> > mountain was low enough to experience a submarine environment?
>
> First off, the mountains where there are sediments haven't withstood
> 'hundreds of millions of erosion'. Places like Everest have only been
> uplifted over the past 35 million years.

Oh, pardon me! They have withstood 35 million years of erosion! Big
difference! At 20cm per thousand years (for the average sedimentary
rock on a mountain) that is 700,000cm or 7,000 meters of erosion in 35
million years. Shouldn't this kind of erosion have wiped Mt. Everest
clean of the geologic column... down to the bare granite layer
underneath? What preserved the geologic column on places such as Mt.
Everest? Likewise, what makes the layers of Arizona so resistant to
erosion? The Colorado River is supposed to be around 10 million years
old. Lets say that erosion takes away 5cm per thousand years from the
surface of the very flat sediments of Arizona. Does this sound like a
reasonable erosion rate (You said that even granite erodes at about
1inch per thousand years)? At this rate there would be 50,000cm or
500 meters of erosion. That is almost a third of a mile. The topmost
layer of the Grand Canyon is the Middle Permian Kaibab Limestone. The
next lower layer is the The Toroweap Formation, aged about "260
million years old" or about the time of the "Early Permian age." The
next lower layer is the Coconino Sandstone that was deposited, "270
million years ago," also during the "Early Permian age." Below this
is another Early Permian layer called the Hermit Shale. Below this is
the Supai Group from the Pennsylvanian/Permain geologic age range.
The next lower layer is the Redwall Limestone from the Early-Middle
Mississippian in age. So far we have covered about 100 million years
of geologic time... correct? The 10-million-year-old Colorado River
has eroded through all of these layers... correct? What is
interesting though is that these 100 million years of sediment have an
average thickness of about 500 meters. Over the course of 10 million
years that the Colorado River has been carving out these layers, how
did these topmost layers avoid being weathered away by other forces of
erosion such as wind and rain that that seem to generally erode such
materials as these at about 5cm per thousand years?

> "Significant vertical uplift probably began in the Oligocene about 35 Ma ago
> and has continued to the present time, but at varying rates." Michael A.
> Summerfield, Global Geomorphology (Harlow, England, 1991), P. 71

This doesn't explain the lack of erosion that one would expect in
"just" 35 Ma.

> So, your fact is wrong. Secondly, Everest is covered by Mississippian
> carbonates. How much sediment has been eroded off of it? We don't know,
> because it has been eroded. Thus, you are making the mistake of looking at
> the remaining sediment and saying, 'it couldn't last that long,' but of
> course it didn't have to last that long. What didn't last that long was the
> sediment which was removed! Eroson arguments among creationiss almost always
> fail to take account of deposition and then remobilization, as well as the
> amount of missing sediment.

7,000 meters of sediment is a whole lot of missing sediment. How much
"remobilization" takes place on mountains? Is there any evidence to
suggest that there were other layers extending some 7,000 meters above
the Mississippian layer that now covers Mt. Everest? What is the
topmost layer in the foothills and valleys that surround the Everest
Mountains?

> > This
> > question also holds for the relatively thin layers of the geologic
> > column generally spread out over the continental shelves. The
> > continental shelves may rise when overlying mass is removed, like a
> > barge rising in the water when cargo is removed, but how are the
> > relatively thin layers of the geologic column preserved from erosion?
> > By saying that it only takes 10-15 million years to erode away the
> > entire continental shelf, I am not saying that they will erode below
> > sea level in this time. They may rise and keep rising for all I know.
> > But, the curious problem for me is that this erosion can remove so
> > much mass from the continental shelves and yet leave the most
> > superficial layers (ie: the geologic column) relatively intact. How
> > is this done?
>
> I don't understand the question. Are you saying that more erosion has
> occurred on the continental shelves than on the continent or what?

According to my understanding, correct me if I am misunderstanding the
terminology, but the dry land of continents rests on and is part of
the "continental shelf" that holds them up above the ocean basins.
According to this definition, I am saying that erosion would remove of
a fair percentage of the exposed land surface of a continent to sea
level (if it were to remain at its current level), in 10-15 million
years. In other words, the current amount of exposed land would be
eroded away in relatively short order if its open exposure to erosion
continues.

> > You say that granite is extremely hard and probably weathers away by
> > less than 1 inch per thousand years. That seems reasonable, but the
> > sedimentary nature of the layers within the geologic column do not
> > seem to be this sturdy. Their erosion rate should be much higher than
> > that of granite, should it not? How then are they maintained or
> > preserved over the course of hundreds of millions of years? Shouldn't
> > the surfaces of the granites have been wiped clean, like so much dried
> > mud on your driveway, multiple times over the course of several
> > hundred million years? Or, does sediment deposition surpass sediment
> > erosion?
>
> One thing you miss is that the amount of land exposed to subaerial erosion
> has been much less in the past than currently exists. Notice that in the
> Cretaceous 1/3 of today's present land area was under water. That means that
> there was much less erosion and what was occurring was being re-deposited on
> top of the submerged continental blocks.

I know that the surface land exposure or "sub aerial" exposure of at
least a good part of the geologic column has gone on for at least 250
million years if standard geologic time scales are correct. Obviously
the layers of the Grand Canyon have had subaerial exposure for at
least 10 million years according to the estimated age of the Colorado
River. The expected erosion given these time frames is strangely
lacking.

< snip >

> > I do have some other "aside" comments concerning some of your other
> > critiques.
> >
> > I wrote:
> >
> > >One of the very foundations of evolution
> > >and popular science today is the "geologic
> > >column." This column is made up of layers of
> > >sedimentary rock and is supposed to have formed
> > >over millions and even billions of years.
> >
> >
> > You went off by saying that this is, "historically absolutely false."
> > You know as well as I do what I am talking about. I am not talking
> > about history here, but how modern evolutionary scientists view the
> > geologic column.
>
> No I don't know what you are talking about. You said that the foundation of
> evolution is the geologic column. That isn't true. The foundation of
> evolution was the observations of morphological change observed by Darwin.
> He has very little paleontology in his book and thus relied little on
> geology to develop evolution.

No. I said that ONE of the foundations of evolution and popular
science TODAY is the geologic column. There are certainly others.
Morphology changes are certainly another. Genetic is another.
However, this does not discount the fact that geology and the fossils
that are contained in the geologic column is extremely important and
has been extremely important for the support of the theory of
evolution both today, and in the past.

> > Geology, fossils and the geologic column that
> > contains them, are a huge part of the modern theory of evolution.
> > Please, I get referred to the geologic column and the fossil record
> > all the time as some of the most solid evidence for the "truth" of
> > evolution in existence. Don't tell me that my statement is false when
> > the geologic column is obviously one of the biggest pillars of
> > evolution around.
>
> You believe in a global flood and that life which got on the ark got off of
> it after a year and repopulated the earth. Then explain why we don't find
> any modern species of mamamals below the Miocene? Why don't we find any
> modern genera of fish buried in cretaceous rocks?

This is besides the point. There are many various arguments that
address the issues of fossils and where they are found throughout the
column such as local environments niches of various creatures, ability
for escape, body composition/density etc. However, this is not the
topic here. The topic here is strictly geology. I don't have the
time or energy right now to get into fossils that do not directly
affect geological formations or how they were formed... although I am
sure that you know a great deal about the topic. If you wish to
address this topic further, I would certainly be willing to read what
you have to say, but I'm not up for a debate at this point about
fossils. Trace fossils such as tubes created by clams or worms etc.
that might indicate the timing of layer formation are another story.
These have something directly to do with how geologic formations were
formed.

< Snip discussion of fossils found in various formations throughout
the column >

> > You also commented, "You can also see overthrusts and other things you
> > say don't exist."
> >
> > I never said any such thing. Overthrusts obviously exist. Sometimes
> > they are rather huge, with vast slabs that are hundreds of miles long
> > and hundreds of feet thick extending many miles over other layers.
> > Funny thing is, I am told that there doesn't seem to be a lot of
> > evidence of sliding, gauging or heat production from friction for many
> > of these overthrusts. I find that rather odd. Can you point me in
> > the right direction on this one?
>
> See http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/othrust.htm for an explanation
> of how overthrusts exist and why they don't show what creationists expect.

Ok, I read your web page, but continue to have a bit of confusion.
The explanation I got from reading your work as well as others is that
overthrusts travel very slowly with only portions moving at any one
time... like the movement of a caterpillar. Ok, lets consider the
Glarus Overthrust for example. The geologic order of this overthrust
is Eocene on the bottom, then Jurassic, and then Permian on top. Of
course it should be Permian, Jurassic, and then Eocene on top. The
Glarus Overthrust (near Schwanden, Switzerland) extends some 21 miles.
It appears that they layers have been flipped. But how does one flip
21 miles of solid rock? Also, there are no striations or linear
groves at the contact zones between any of the layers to give some
indication that they traveled in a linear direction over anything...
like a caterpillar or otherwise. The irregularities at the bottom of
each formation have not been worn away either. How is this explained?
In fact, it seems that the contact zones of these overthrusts found
throughout the world are as crisp as the edge of a knife and yet there
are preserved ridges between layers that have not been ground away or
disrupted in any manner. Also, how are some areas, such are found in
the Grand Canyon, explained where different layers of the geologic
column are repetitively intermixed? For example, it is my current
understanding that there can be found areas in the Grand Canyon were
Mississippian and Cambrian layers alternate back and forth multiple
times... like a deck of cards being shuffled. I find that rather
non-intuitive.

How are these "problems" explained?

I've seen the data you've presented. Still, the layers are generally
free from the erosion that I would expect to be occurring over
millions of years.

> > The rivers
> > could have been the result of a rapid runoff with quick erosion, not
> > necessarily present for millions of years. You say that this river
> > affects underlying levels, and this does seem to be the case, but it
> > is too isolated a case. There is not enough evidence of supporting
> > erosion in these layers to make this a conclusive argument, from my
> > limited perspective of course. I will look more into it however.
> > Your example of a canyon formation still seems rather isolated. Are
> > the surrounding contact zones of the layer or layers that preserved
> > this canyon crisp and flat without very much evidence of weathering?
> > It seems to me that fairly large canyons have been formed, even in
> > modern times, in a very rapid manner by quick water runoff from a
> > large body of water.
>
> What you are referring to is canyons dug out of soft dirt, not hard rock.

Again, you assume the point that you are trying to defend. That is a
circular argument. I do not agree that the layers were already "rock"
by the time these canyons were formed. Obviously, if I think that
they layers were formed rapidly, then they might still be soft.
Therefore, you cannot simply argue that they were "obviously" hard.
Then, even if they were "hard rock," rapid water movements in large
catastrophic flooding events can create river erosion and even large
canyons in hard rock. It happens even today. Rapid water movements
are very destructive and can carve out paths rapidly through solid

rock.

> > I will have to further review your discussion and references
> > concerning the Coconino sand dunes. However, I do not understand how
> > such crisp vertebrate footprints, to include prints of toenails could
> > be preserved in dry sand as you suggest. Perhaps they could be
> > preserved in wet sand that has been exposed to air for a while, having
> > somewhat of a crusted surface.
>
> I agree, that the sand must have been a bit damp for the preservation of
> detailed foot prints, but this happens even in deserts. Or could happen in
> the Sand Hills of Western Nebraska which gets enough rain today to hold the
> dunes in check, but they are former desert dunes.

I still do not see it like this. I must continue looking into this
particular argument in more detail, but the evidence, even after
reading the information you've given to me, still seems much more
consistent with underwater formation with brief periods of aerial
exposure. For example, how do you explain the decreased angle of the
sand dunes? The Coconino sand dunes themselves are not like the sand
dunes of modern deserts. They have an average slope angle of 25deg.
while the average slope angle of dry sand is 30-34deg. How is this
explained?

Oh yeah? The term, "escape burrows" can be found in non-creationist
literature quite easily. It is also used to teach evolutionary
geology in schools. Follow the link:
http://www.southalabama.edu/geography/haywick/GY112/112-14.htm.

J.M. Moore suggests that "widespread burrows, vertical burrows, escape
structures, and load structures in Esmerelda County sections suggest
very rapid deposition." Vertical burrows, or skolithos, are common in
Member 5 which is the lithostratigrapghic equivalent to what he refers
to as the Upper Sandstone Unit of the Poleta Formation in his
Esmerelda County study area. Moore believes that most of this
lithozome was deposited in "a typical beach and nearshore environment
similar to those forming today along low gradient coastlines" (cites
McKee,1957, Reineck, 1972, Singh, 1973). This view is consistent with
a second marine regression.

> They
> argue that way lacking any and all evidence of vertical motion in the sand.
> If worms had moved up, they would leave a disturbed zone. We see these in
> some sands, but not the Haymond ones.
>
> > Not only creationist literature calls them this. I have also read
> > what you have written about this as well. Let me pose a scenario for
> > you though. Lets just assume that these are escape burrows and that
> > they did climb out the top of the sand after it had swarmed in via
> > turbiditic flow. Some of these turbidites weren't very big. I mean,
> > if what you say is true, the layers put down by these sandy turbidites
> > were only between one millimeter and five centimeters thick. I know
> > that in other areas the sandy turbidites could be as thick as nine
> > meters, but that is besides the point. The point is that it is very
> > difficult to kill a burrowing creature (clam, worm, crab etc) in just
> > one millimeter of sand. I have covered up such creatures with sand
> > and they quickly dig out. But, you say, if they dug out, where are
> > the preserved piles of sand on the top of the sandy layers? The tops
> > of these layers have evidence of preserved current action and are wavy
> > or undulating like the sand in the ocean is when acted on by currents.
>
> These are deep layers below wave base. I don't know where you got the idea
> that the sand tops were wavy. Do you have a reference?

Sheehan, M.A. 1988. Ichnology, depositional environment, and
paleoecology of the upper Pennington Formation (upper Mississippian),
Dougherty Gap, Walker, County, Georgia. Unpublished Masters Thesis,
University of Georgia, Athens.

In the shale and sandstone layers found at Dougherty Gap, Walker
County, Georgia, there were ripple marks on the tops of each sandstone
layer. According to Sheehan, "these structures formed in response to
unidirectional currents which occurred either contemporaneously [at
the same time] or penecontemporaneously [immediately following] with
sediment deposition." These ripple marks are found on the tops of
every sandstone layer exposed at this site, including the thinnest
sandstone layers. These bi-directional current ripples are associated
with turbidite deposits which have been modified by contour currents.

> Of the worms, they
> don't live in sandy environments, only in shaly environments. Thus, even if
> they did escape, they would have to move to other areas to live. And before
> they can re-inhabit the area, shale must be deposited. Shale, as I point
> out, takes long periods of time to be deposited. If you allow for 41 years
> for that deposit 1 layer per day, then you still have to account for the
> 75,000 feet of sediment stratigraphically above this horizon filling the
> Gulf of Mexico. The entire section which contains the Haymond beds dips
> below the sediments filling the Gulf. The Gulf has 75,000 feet of sediment.
> So, if the Haymond bed took 41 years, then Noah was already off the boat
> long before the Haymond could be deposited meaning that 75,000 feet of Gulf
> sediment was deposited post flood. Thus, the great catastrophe was over,
> meaning that it would then take millions of years for that much sediment to
> accumulate.

Whether or not it was "Noah's Flood" that deposited these layers seems
rather irrelevant to me. The fact is that turbidites deposited the
sand rapidly over the layers of mud that the clams and worms lived in.
This thin layer of sand isn't going to kill anything. Your arguments
that say that 1mm to 5cm of sand kills the burrowing organisms is just
too much. Clearly the burrowing critters are going to quickly escape
burial by thin layers of sand. If the waters round about are very
heavy with silt, as might be expected with churned up flood waters,
this might filter down and create a muddy bottom over the sandy layer
fairly rapidly. The burrowing critters might not have to wait that
long at all to begin tunneling through another layer. This might
especially be the case considering the many of the shale as well as
the sand layers are extremely thin. Some of the shale layers are
thinner than the diameter of the burrowers.

> > I have seen small, buried creatures dig out of sand under water in
> > such areas of current, and the little pile of sand that is made is
> > quickly obliterated. In just a few seconds you can't even tell where
> > they made their exit. I am surprised at this argument, because the
> > answer seems so obvious to me. But of course, you are the geologist
> > and I am not, so I suppose I must simply accept your argument? But
> > really, I just don't see the problem here.
>
> Show me the evidence that wave erosion removed the sand piles which the
> worms would make. Or am I merely supposed to take your word for it?

See above.

> > Your calculation about the time for the formation of the Haymond beds
> > was also pretty interesting. Your equation, "1300/5000*365=95 days
> > for the time over which the Haymond must be deposited." Does not seem
> > to be an automatic default. First of, you wrote your equation wrong.
> > I'm sure you meant to write, "5000/1300*365=95."
>
> No, Sean, you show that you aren't good at math. I meant to write
> 1300/5000*365.

LOL - yes of course, you are correct. Just goes to show that someone
who aced geometry, algebra, trig, physics etc, still gets 2 + 2 wrong
every now and then. In other words, check everyone's work before you
believe it. That's what I'm doing with your work. Your are a
geologist, but I can't simply take your word for things. Your work
does carry more significant weight because you are a geologist, but
for me to really understand your position, I must study and consider
your interpretations for myself.

> The Haymond beds are 1300 m thick. The entire preserved
> geologic column there is 5000 m thick. Thus the Haymond represents
> 1300/5000=26% of the total strata. Simply linearly interpolating means that
> the Haymond took 25% of the time for the global flood to be deposited. That
> happens to be 95 days.

Given the idea that a single event, such as a flood of 365 days,
formed all the layers, your calculations seems somewhat rational if
the deposition of flood waters occurred at the same rate the entire
time. But what if the first 75% of the layers was laid down in 50
days? Also, you assume that a worldwide catastrophe of this magnitude
would have no long lasting effects, such as repetitive floods or huge
changes in global weather, hurricane rates or seismic events. Such
events could result in the relatively rapid build up of sedimentary
layers over the course of many years without requiring millions of
years.

> > You assume by this
> > equations that the formation of the entire column required equal time
> > for each part. You also assume that all those who don't believe the
> > column is hundreds of millions of years old, must believe that it was
> > formed by a single catastrophic event, which is simply mistaken.
>
> If it wasn't then the flood was millions of years ago because you still have
> 75,000 feet of regional stratigraphy to be deposited AFTER the Haymond was
> deposited.

You assume that the maximum thickness of each of the geologic layers
would form over the Haymond beds. This clearly doesn't happen over
much of the globe. For example, in Arizona, where are the "rest of
layers" above the uppermost Permian layer? Your estimate of 75,000
feet of remaining sediment to be deposited seems a bit generous to me.
How many feet of sediment are currently formed over the Haymond
formation? I mean, 75,000 feet is equal to 14.2 miles of sediment.
Where on earth are such sedimentary layers found? For comparison, Mt.
Everest is only a mere 29,002 feet tall. Of course you might be
assuming erosion and re-deposit ion, but this defeats your previous
arguments that such erosion rates as I describe do not happen under
water. It also would speak against the crisp knife edge contact zones
found between the various layers. So really then, 75,000 feet?
Please...

> > You
> > also assume that there is simply no way for burrowing creatures to
> > escape 1mm of sand that "traps" them in their tunnels. Please... this
> > is almost funny. You never tried to bury these critters as a kid now
> > did you?
>
> All the time. My mother beat me and my brother, my Dad was always gone cause
> he couldn't stand her, and I was a bully and a thug. (all literally true).
> So yes, as a child, I did things I am not proud of

I've done things I'm not proud of too, but burying burrowing critters
in the sand isn't one of them. I buried them all the time and they
always climbed right back out. The point is, you can't bury burrowing
critters in a little sand pile and expect that this will kill them.

> > You went on to say, "No geologist believes
> > that every single formation formed
> > everywhere over the entire earth."
> >
> > I would not expect to find a single formation formed everywhere over
> > the entire earth, even with a global catastrophe, such as a global
> > flood. It seems to me that such a global catastrophe would affect
> > different areas in different ways and make different kinds of
> > sedimentation. Even if not and there was no single global
> > catastrophe, this still does not explain why the layers are so flat
> > and even without significant weathering in-between.
>
> This is a ridiculous objection. How much evidence for erosion do you see in
> Southern Louisiana? The highest topographic feature is about 35 feet above
> sea level.

Actually, I've been to southern Louisiana a fair many times. To be
honest, I haven't noticed much erosion there. However, it is
difficult to notice erosion in a single lifetime when the rate of
erosion is only 5-10cm per thousand years. What would you say the
rate of erosion is for Southern Louisiana, all buried in swamps?
However, despite the flatness of S. Louisiana, I would expect that if
it were to get buried by another layer of dirt, that the contact zone
between what is there now and the new layer of sediment, would not be
crisp and flat. The surface of the ground in Louisiana isn't
completely smooth you know. Every foot of ground is fairly uneven.
Certainly not as flat as a piece of glass. Also, Louisiana S.
Louisiana covers a very small relative area to certain formations that
we see in the geologic column that cover significant portions of
entire continents as well as the globe. The world back then must have
been very flat indeed, and very resistant to erosion.

> > Even without a
> > single global event, they still do not seem to be hundreds of millions
> > of years old. I am ok with their formation with many separate events
> > that were separated by relatively short gaps in time, but I am not
> > seeing the evidence for hundreds of millions of years. Even so, there
> > are in fact very large areas that are covered by single layers.
>
> Can you document this amazing claim? I have never heard that before and
> think you have been reading too many people writing on geology who, like
> you, are not experts.

What documentation do you need? Documentation of large areas covered
by single layers? I don't need to document this assertion. You
yourself have written about these vast layers.

> > Some
> > stretch a fair distance around the globe. It seems like any kind of
> > catastrophe that could create any one of these monsters, such as might
> > have been the case following a giant meteor impact, could have
> > released enough energy to cause huge tidal waves to encircle most if
> > not then entire globe, maybe more than once?
>
> Ah, I see, I think you are actually referring to the work I originally did
> and published in the Creation Research Society Quarterly, Morton, G. R.
> (1984). Global, Continental, and Regional Sedimentation Systems and Their
> Implications. Creation Research Society Quarterly. 21:23-33.
>
> I was the first to note in creationist literature that certain widespread
> formations might be indications of the flood. I was wrong for a whole
> variety of reasons.
> Yes there are widespread deposits, but they don't indicate a global flood.

Nah, it just represents widespread evidence of simultaneous submersion
then.

> The Mississippian crinoidal limestones are widespread (but not universal)
> and contain unique fossils found in no other layer. There are so many dead
> crinoids contained in these beds that if spread all over the earth, they
> could cover it to a depth of a couple of meters. So if the pre-flood world
> was covered with crinoids(a marine animal, where did the buffalo roam? There
> are enough diatoms to cover the earth to a depth of 20 meters and enough
> dead chalk to cover the earth to about the same. All of these are marine
> creatures and there are more found in the fossil record than can possibly
> have inhabited one preflood earth. Or even an earth 200,000 years old.

Who says that these layers where formed "preflood"? The fact that
such layers are found over much of the Earth seems that much of the
Earth was once covered by water at the same time. It was at least a
very wet place at some time in the past. Also, I have been told that
vast numbers of these chalk forming creatures can form very rapidly in
certain situations that give rise to crinoid "blooms." The chalk
layers in the geologic column can be extremely thick, such as the
"white cliffs of Dover." Such deposits do not form in deep waters
because the calcium from the bodies of dead crinoids dissolves before
it can build up in deep waters. Perturbed shallow waters, such as one
would expect from a large flooding event, might give rise to massive
crinoid blooms that deposit diatomatious sediments very quickly. How
is this thinking in error?

<snip>

> > Your stuff on clastic dykes is also very interesting indeed.
> > Honestly, this does seem to make some sense to me, but I am not
> > completely convinced yet. Will have to look into it further.
>
> Don't let the phrase 'will look into it further' become a cop out. Too many
> young-earthers do that. They never go actually do any more study.
>
> > It
> > seems that your hypothesis that sand can remain liquefied for millions
> > of years is based on an "a priori" understanding in the "truth" of the
> > old age of the geologic column. Even so, I see your point. If sand
> > can remain liquefied far longer than other overlying sediments, then
> > it would still be able to squirt under pressure. But why do some of
> > these clastic dykes have a core that is formed of clay? How did the
> > clay remain liquefied?
>
> Sands aren't liquefied. They remain unconsolidated. Those who have taught
> you geology haven't taught you the correct terminology.

Not "liquefied"? I suppose then that you mean "dry sand" that is
still not chemically cemented? Hmmmm... It doesn't seem probable to
me that dry sand will "squirt" under vertical pressure ether. Also,
you didn't answer my question about the "clay cores" that are found in
some of the clastic dykes. How does clay avoid being unconsolidated
long enough to "squirt" when the unconsolidated sand squirts?

> > Well, I will stop with these questions for now. I do appreciate your
> > time and effort in your reply. I'm not writing or challenging
> > evolution to convince or "convert" anyone to my way of thinking so
> > much as I am putting my ideas out there for others to challenge. for
> > my own benefit and knowledge. I have no burden to convince you or
> > anyone else of anything. That's not my job. I'm not one who thinks
> > it is "morally wrong" to believe in evolution. I wish to hear the
> > other side of the story, your side of the story, primarily for my own
> > benefit. You have in fact challenged me in a very good way. I am
> > very interested in your views and insights. I find them quite
> > interesting and reasonable. I am not yet converted to your point of
> > view, but even I can see, with my dull wit, that your position is
> > carefully considered and not at all irrational.
>
> Thank you for the kind words. I spent years trying to maintain a
> young-earth viewpoint in the face of all the geology I was seeing at work.
> Eventually I had to either be honest with myself that the data didn't
> support my theology or resolve to become dishonest and believe the theology
> regardless. I chose honesty. It was a painful transition, very painful. I
> hope you remain as honest as you appear.

It is noble to go with honesty especially if it conflicts with
personal desire or needs. Just because we might need something to be
true doesn't make it true. The search for real truth must try to
avoid personal bias as much as is humanly possible. While this can
never be completely done by a human being, one should at last be aware
of the pitfalls of personal bias and make a conscious effort to resist
bias. Also, one must understand that all humans are subjective
beings. No one knows all truth. All information must be interpreted
from a subjective position. Because of this fact, no one and no human
idea is above challenge. We can all be wrong in our interpretations
of the external world. Two equally honest people can look at the same
data and come away with different conclusions about what that data
means. So, the search for truth is never ending, ever elusive.
Personal honesty remains the only knowable absolute in this search for
the truth of the external world.

So, I commend your personal honesty. That is the most important
thing.

Sean

[Bigdakine]

>Subject: Re: Pitman's Pathetic Geology.
>From: Sean...@juno.com

>Date: 9/25/02 1:21 PM Hawaiian Standard Time

Pitman Opines:

"I also have some questions concerning the various layers themselves.
Consider, for example, the Jurassic layer in your first figure. The
various sedimentary lines that form the Jurassic are very much in a
U-shape. I have seen similar shapes and even hair pin turns in such
sedimentary layers. It is interesting to me that these hair-pin turns
have no evidence of rock fracture. If you try to bend a solid rock,
it simply won't bend. It will break and crumble first. How do you
explain the absence of fractures in such hair-pin turns. "

Well Mr. Pitman, you wouldn't know would you? And clearly you went through a
great deal of effort to find out.

Does the expression "solid state creep" mean anything to you, Mr Pitman? Under
pressure and slow strain rates, you can make rock do all sorts of neat things,
especially if you heat them up a little as well.

No, Mr. Pitman, there is no difficulty in explaining what you observe. In
addition, there are many places where indeed fracture does accompany folding.

We'll just chalk up those remarks to general ignorance.

[sds]

"Bigdakine" <bigd...@aol.comGetaGrip> wrote in message
news:20020925205647...@mb-fp.aol.com...

> >Subject: Re: Pitman's Pathetic Geology.
> >From: Sean...@juno.com
> >Date: 9/25/02 1:21 PM Hawaiian Standard Time

[snip]

> Does the expression "solid state creep" mean anything to you, Mr Pitman?
Under
> pressure and slow strain rates, you can make rock do all sorts of neat
things,
> especially if you heat them up a little as well.

Got a favorite link for info on "creep"? I thought heat was pretty much
required.

[Jon Fleming]

Creep is very similar to diffusion; the rate is exponential with
temperature. If you've got lots of time ...

[Stanley Friesen]

Sean...@juno.com (Sean Pitman M.D.) wrote:

>Glenn Morton
>
>> One question. before I answer your post. Would you be willing to give up
>> your belief in a global flood if you were convinced that the data didn't
>> support it? If not, then we are wasting our time. If so, then we can
>> continue without being wasteful.
>
>Sure. Of course the evidence that you find so convincing, given your
>specific education in this field, I might be too dull witted or
>limited as far as my background to understand or find convincing.

The general principle I go on is that if I do not know enough about a
field to make reliable judgements I rely on the judgement of those who
do know.

>I went to your web page detailing the North Sea conformity. As part of
>your intro you said, "Unconformities are evidence of erosion between
>two strata and would take much time if the rocks were hard while they
>were being eroded." There are a couple questions I have concerning
>this statement as it compares to the seismic data you present.
>
>If you are arguing that long periods of time are required for these
>formations, how can you support yourself by assuming long periods of
>time in your argument to begin with? This seems a bit circular to me.

That isn't what he did. He (or previous researchers) noticed that the
erosion happened after the sediment consolidated into rock (by studying
places where the rock outcrops or using sediment cores of some sort),
and concluded from that the erosion had to take considerable time, since
the rock was solid at the time.

> You made a circular assumption by saying, "IF the rocks were hard."
>The assumption that the sediments were already hard is an assumption
>based on the idea they they formed over very long periods of time.

That is not actually how it is done. The rocks are studied, and
relationships like when the erosion happened relative to the change into
rock can be estimated by various means.

>
>I also have some questions concerning the various layers themselves.
>Consider, for example, the Jurassic layer in your first figure. The
>various sedimentary lines that form the Jurassic are very much in a
>U-shape. I have seen similar shapes and even hair pin turns in such
>sedimentary layers. It is interesting to me that these hair-pin turns
>have no evidence of rock fracture. If you try to bend a solid rock,
>it simply won't bend. It will break and crumble first.

Time frames: if you could manage to try and bend the rock over hundreds
or thousands of years, instead of seconds, your results would differ.

[Stanley Friesen]

Jon Fleming <jo...@fleming-nospam.com> wrote:
>Creep is very similar to diffusion; the rate is exponential with
>temperature. If you've got lots of time ...
>

Which is how it can be studied on human time frames: heat the rock
enough and it can happen in days or perhaps even hours, fast enough to
observe.

[Tracy P. Hamilton]

On Thu, 26 Sep 2002 00:59:07 +0000 (UTC), We get signal. Main screen
turn on. bigd...@aol.comGetaGrip (Bigdakine) said:

>>Subject: Re: Pitman's Pathetic Geology.
>>From: Sean...@juno.com
>>Date: 9/25/02 1:21 PM Hawaiian Standard Time
>
>
>
>Pitman Opines:
>
>"I also have some questions concerning the various layers themselves.
>Consider, for example, the Jurassic layer in your first figure. The
>various sedimentary lines that form the Jurassic are very much in a
>U-shape. I have seen similar shapes and even hair pin turns in such
>sedimentary layers. It is interesting to me that these hair-pin turns
>have no evidence of rock fracture. If you try to bend a solid rock,
>it simply won't bend. It will break and crumble first. How do you
>explain the absence of fractures in such hair-pin turns. "
>
>Well Mr. Pitman, you wouldn't know would you? And clearly you went through a
>great deal of effort to find out.
>
>Does the expression "solid state creep" mean anything to you, Mr Pitman? Under
>pressure and slow strain rates, you can make rock do all sorts of neat things,
>especially if you heat them up a little as well.

You could also suggest that he look up Dan Watts thread on lunar
craters for a creationist who was even using creep to prove that
craters on the moon were young.

Tracy P. Hamilton
Building Manager, Alco Hall
University of Ediacara

[Keith Littleton]

In Message-ID: <fd67d42a.02092...@posting.google.com>

Sean...@juno.com (Sean Pitman M.D.) wrote:

>I also have some questions concerning the various
>layers themselves. Consider, for example, the Jurassic
>layer in your first figure. The various sedimentary
>lines that form the Jurassic are very much in a U-shape.
>I have seen similar shapes and even hair pin turns in
>such sedimentary layers. It is interesting to me that
>these hair-pin turns have no evidence of rock fracture.

That is simply a matter of the resolution of the seismic
data. It simply does not show the detail that a person
would see if he /she were at the outcrop. If a person was
at an outcrop of these rocks, he or she would see either
evidence of fracturing of the rock ductile deformation
of the rock, or both. As I discuss below, geologists
have examined outcrops of folded rocks and repeatedly
found abundant evidence of fractures and features
indicative that the rocks were lithified to some degree
when folded. (I find it curious that some creationists,
e.g. Ian Taylor, seem incapable of recognizing a
fracture, fault, or joint in a fold even if their life
depended on it.)

>If you try to bend a solid rock, it simply won't bend.
>It will break and crumble first. How do you explain
>the absence of fractures in such hair-pin turns. Are
>such fractures found in this Jurassic U-shaped layer
>that you say was solid rock by the time of its erosion?
>It seems rather obvious to me that these layers were
>bent after all of them had been laid down. If the
>bending process had occurred before all of them had
>been laid down, the subsequent layers would not be
>bent.

The fact of the matter, is that if a person looks
closely enough, a person will find an abundance of
evidence that the big folds were made while the rocks
were lithified. Sedimentary rocks do exhibit small folds
that occurred while they were being deposited and still
soft. These are very small and occur within individual
beds and are not the folds being discussed here. The
large-scale folds found in the Appalachian, Rocky, and
other mountain ranges being discussed here, if inspected
in the field, all show clear evidence that the strata
involved were lithified. They show jointing and faulting
caused by the fracturing of brittle rock while it was
folded. Also, in other cases, deformation of rocks by
"solid state creep" can also be seen. Under pressure
and slow strain rates, some rocks can deform without
fracturing. If the rocks were soft when the folding
occurred, how did cleavage, jointing, stretched pebbles,
rag folds, keystone grabens, kink banding, foliation,
and deformation of the fossils and, even, sand grains
form?

Examples of the evidence, which Mr. Pittman claims
doesn't exist can be found on the web page of "Jon E.
Olson" at:

http://www.pe.utexas.edu/~jolson/nat.frac.html

Fractures on the top of a large fold at Oil Mountain,
Wyoming be seen in "Unsaturated Cross-Fold Fractures" at
http://www.pe.utexas.edu/~jolson/utig-talk_files/v3_slide0227.htm
http://www.pe.utexas.edu/~jolson/utig-talk_files/v3_document.htm

Fractured rocks on the limb of a fold can be seen in
"Saturated Cross-Fold Fractures" at:
http://www.pe.utexas.edu/~jolson/utig-talk_files/v3_slide0228.htm
http://www.pe.utexas.edu/~jolson/utig-talk_files/v3_document.htm

It would be impossible for the fractures that Dr. Jolson
discusses to have formed if the sediment had been soft
when folded. If Mr. Pittman would look at the literature
he would find innumerable descriptions of beds of
sedimentary rocks that were fractured, faulted, and
jointed when they were folded. A few of these many
documented examples of sedimentary rocks fractured while
folding are:

Engelder T. and D. C. P. Peacock (2001) Joint development
normal to regional compression during flexural-flow
folding; the Lilstock buttress anticline, Somerset,
England. Journal of Structural Geology. vol. 23, no. 2-3
pp. 259-277.

Hennings, P. H., J. E. Olson, and L. B. Thompson (2000)
Combining outcrop data and three-dimensional structural
models to characterize fractured reservoirs; an example
from Wyoming. American Association of Petroleum
Geologist Bulletin. vol. 84, no. 6, pp. 830-849.

McConaughy, D. T., and T. Engelder (2001) Joint
initiation in bedded clastic rocks. Journal of
Structural Geology. vol. 3, no. 2-3, pp. 203-221.

Silliphant, L. J., T. Engelder, and M. R. Gross (2002)
The state of stress in the limb of the Split Mountain
Anticline, Utah; constraints placed by transected
joints. Journal of Structural Geology. vol. 24, no. 1,
pp. 155-172.

An on-line thesis about folded sedimentary rocks in
Douglas County, Oregon provides readily observable
examples of rocks that fractured while they folded.
Figures showing the faulting, fracturing, and ductile
deformation of what were lithified strata at the time
of their folding can be seen in "Outcrop Observations" at:

http://nwdata.geol.pdx.edu/Thesis/fulltext/1998/Stack/
OutcropObservations.html

(The above URL needs to reassembled to work)

Reassembled it is:

http://nwdata.geol.pdx.edu/Thesis/fulltext/1998/Stack/OutcropObservations.html

This is part of a M.S. thesis:

Carol Stack, (1998) An examination of folded Eocene
turbidites, Douglas County, Unpublished M.S. thesis.
Southwestern Oregon. Portland State University, Portland
Oregon.

The entire thesis can be accessed on-line at:

http://nwdata.geol.pdx.edu/Thesis/fulltext/1998/Stack/index.html

Some other URLs are:

1. "A slate quarry in Pennsylvania. Note the person in
the red jacket at the bottom of the image for scale.
Photo is courtesy of Dr. Stanley Finney, CSU Long Beach."
http://seis.natsci.csulb.edu/bperry/slatequarryStan1.jpg
http://seis.natsci.csulb.edu/bperry/ROCKS.htm

2. Cleavage and folding
http://www.brunel.ac.uk/depts/geo/iainsub/Folding/sld029.htm

3. An example of pebbles stretched by solid state
deformation can be seen in:

http://seis.natsci.csulb.edu/bperry/metarock/METACONGLOMERATE.htm
http://seis.natsci.csulb.edu/bperry/metaconglhandsample2.JPG
http://seis.natsci.csulb.edu/bperry/metarock/metaconglStan1.jpg

and

4. "Stretched pebbles in the Raft River metamorphic core
complex, Idaho." at:
http://pangea.stanford.edu/structure/geo_picts/stretched_pebbles.html
http://pangea.stanford.edu/structure/geology_pictures.html

If the sediment was soft, these pebbles would not have
been deformed as they have been.

A good book to find abundant evidence that many rocks
were lithified when they were folded is:

Davis, G. H. (1984) Structural Geology. John Wiley
and Sons, New York, 491 pp.

(or any other textbook on structural geology)

Also, a person can look at these references:

Cosgrove, J. W. (1993) The interplay between fluids,
folds and thrusts during the deformation of a sedimentary
succession. Journal of Structural Geology. vol. 15,
no. 3-5, pp. 491-500.

Cruikshank, K. M., and A. M. Johnson (1993) High-
amplitude folding of linear-viscous multilayers. Journal
of Structural Geology. vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 79-94.

Currie, J. B., H. W. Patnode, and R. P. Trump (1962)
Development of folds in sedimentary strata. Geological
Society of America Bulletin. vol. 73, pp. 655-674.

Johnson, A. M., and V. J. Pfaff (1989) Parallel, similar
and constrained folds. Engineering Geology. vol. 27,
pp. 115-180.

Have Fun

Keith Littleton
New Orleans, LA

[Sean Pitman M.D.]

Stuart

> > "I also have some questions concerning the various layers themselves.
> > Consider, for example, the Jurassic layer in your first figure. The
> > various sedimentary lines that form the Jurassic are very much in a
> > U-shape. I have seen similar shapes and even hair pin turns in such
> > sedimentary layers. It is interesting to me that these hair-pin turns
> > have no evidence of rock fracture. If you try to bend a solid rock,
> > it simply won't bend. It will break and crumble first. How do you
> > explain the absence of fractures in such hair-pin turns. "
>
> Well Mr. Pitman, you wouldn't know would you?

LOL - That's why I asked... Dr. Weinstein.

> And clearly you went through a
> great deal of effort to find out.

Not much at all really... just a simple question.

> Does the expression "solid state creep" mean anything to you, Mr Pitman?

Yes, but I don't see good evidence for a heating event in these
"creeping" layers. Also, juding from the absence of non-warped
layers, the warping itself must have happened fairly rapidly... before
other sedements could accumulate. Or, is this just another silly
thought of mine? Could be! That's why I'm asking it. If you never
ask silly questions, you won't get very far.

> Under pressure and slow strain rates, you can make rock do all sorts of neat
> things, especially if you heat them up a little as well.

Yeah, especially if you heat them up a little. Where is the evidence
for this heat you speak of? How long does it take for a 5 foot slab
of solid rock to warp into a perfect hairpin loop without a single
fracture?

> No, Mr. Pitman, there is no difficulty in explaining what you observe. In
> addition, there are many places where indeed fracture does accompany folding.

I personally haven't seem many of these fractured folds. Do you have
a link to some pictures of such formations? Also, do you have some
references to rock slabs being folded in real time without cracking?
How much heat is required? I may be ignorant and you may have all the
answers... so why shouldn't someone who is ignorant like me ask
someone like you for the answers?

> We'll just chalk up those remarks to general ignorance.

LOL - Touchy touchy! ; ) That's ok. It is to be expected. You know
all the answers so I'm sure my questions are quite humerous from your
perspective. I know if I were you I would just rub it in as much as I
possibly could. It's always easy to do when you know all the answers.

> Stuart
> Dr. Stuart A. Weinstein
> Ewa Beach Institute of Tectonics
> "To err is human, but to really foul things up
> requires a creationist"

Sincerely,

Sean Pitman M.D.

[Sean Pitman M.D.]

Glenn Morton

I got to thinking about your fossil fish argument. I even went to
your web page where you discussed this argument in detail. Really, it
is a very interesting argument. It seems quite reasonable. Like you
said, I haven't heard it discussed much. Given this, I do have some
questions or thoughts for you.

I'm sure you know of the Coelacanth. The Coelacanth can be found in
the geologic column as far back as "360 million years" and as recently
as "80 million years." Then, it disappears from the fossil record
entirely. It was thought to have been completely wiped out with the
dinosaurs, until 1938 when living Coelacanths were found alive and
well off the east coast of S. Africa. Why then did they disappear from
the fossil record after such a long presence there? Some argue that
they used to live in environments "conducive" to fossilization, but
now they live in caves and under the overhanging marine reefs of
volcanic islands that are not so conducive to fossilization.

Interesting argument I think. Fossilization requires rapid burial or
else decay will obliterate all traces. It seems to me that
fossilization is catastrophe dependent. From my understanding,
practically all fossils of fish show evidence of catastrophic
burial... en masse. In other words, the fish were alive and well when
they were suddenly buried alive. There are even some fossils of fish
in the middle of eating other fish. Also, many of them show
statistically significant alignment with each other. In other words,
they are generally found in the same plane of orientation… such as
would be expected from a current deposit. The same orientation can be
generally seen with other types of fossils such as plants, shells,
dinosaurs, etc.

How then did the Coelacanth avoid such catastrophic burials when it
hadn't been able to avoid them for hundreds of millions of years?

With these thoughts in mind, let me pose a hypothetical for you to
shoot down (That's the whole point of hypothetical questions you
know... to be shot down. That is the goal of the scientific method.
Once a person stops trying to shoot down hypothesis and theories of
science, science is not longer science.).

What if the fish found in the lower layers of the geologic column were
"sorted" according to various factors such as environmental habitat
and body composition (to include size, shape, and density)? According
to your numbers, there are fossils of modern genera all the way back
to the Jurassic. Is there anything distinct about these modern genera
that separate them from those genera found earlier in the geologic
column? Maybe, like the Coelacanth, the modern genera of fishes lived
in places "non-conducive" to fossilization during those early
fossilization events or catastrophes? Perhaps modern fish have
certain physical properties that helped them avoid these early rapid
burial events? Obviously certain fish, such as the Coelacanth were
able to avoid many of these events over the course of 80-million-years
that buried other types of fish just fine. How can some rapid burial
events bury some types of fish and not others? Interesting question I
think. Such selectivity seems to happen in any case.

But, I am probably wrong of course. Please though, explain to me the
error of my ways yet again.

Sincerely,

Sean

[Noelie S. Alito]

"sds" <s...@mp3.com> wrote in message news:amu1go$smu$1...@slb6.atl.mindspring.net...

FWIW, my intro chemistry textbook, in the chapter on solids,
discusses the diffusion of atoms from one solid into another. It
used as an example a [surface-temperature] experiment where
blocks of lead and copper were pressed in contact for years, and
found atoms of each element had migrated into the other block.
(This is instantaneous on petrology timescales.)

From the perspective of space, Earth surface temperatures are
plenty "hot" enough (up to 320K). Geologists studying metamorphic
rock deal in temp ranges roughly 475-1000 K (in varied pressure
conditions). [subtract 273 to estimate Celsius]

Noelie
--
nnooee...@mmaaiill.uutteexxaass.eedduu

[Boikat]

"Sean Pitman M.D." <Sean...@juno.com> wrote in message

news:fd67d42a.02092...@posting.google.com...

> Glenn Morton
>
> I got to thinking about your fossil fish argument. I even went to
> your web page where you discussed this argument in detail. Really, it
> is a very interesting argument. It seems quite reasonable. Like you
> said, I haven't heard it discussed much. Given this, I do have some
> questions or thoughts for you.
>
> I'm sure you know of the Coelacanth. The Coelacanth can be found in
> the geologic column as far back as "360 million years" and as recently
> as "80 million years." Then, it disappears from the fossil record
> entirely. It was thought to have been completely wiped out with the
> dinosaurs, until 1938 when living Coelacanths were found alive and
> well off the east coast of S. Africa.

However, the modern species is not found in the fossil record.

> Why then did they disappear from
> the fossil record after such a long presence there? Some argue that
> they used to live in environments "conducive" to fossilization, but
> now they live in caves and under the overhanging marine reefs of
> volcanic islands that are not so conducive to fossilization.
>
> Interesting argument I think. Fossilization requires rapid burial or
> else decay will obliterate all traces. It seems to me that
> fossilization is catastrophe dependent. From my understanding,
> practically all fossils of fish show evidence of catastrophic
> burial... en masse.

Thee are plenty of examples of fossil beds where the sediment was deposited
slowly, such as fossil reefs.

> In other words, the fish were alive and well when
> they were suddenly buried alive.

How can you tell the difference between a fish that was burried while alive,
and one that was burried after it died? A look of shock and surprise on the
fishes face?

> There are even some fossils of fish
> in the middle of eating other fish.

Yes, there is a rather famous fossil from Kansas, where a large fish died
while trying to eat a big fish. The large fish died because the big fish
blocked water from passing over the gills.

> Also, many of them show
> statistically significant alignment with each other. In other words,

> they are generally found in the same plane of orientation. such as

> would be expected from a current deposit.

Is there a problem with there being a current present?

> The same orientation can be
> generally seen with other types of fossils such as plants, shells,
> dinosaurs, etc.
>
> How then did the Coelacanth avoid such catastrophic burials when it
> hadn't been able to avoid them for hundreds of millions of years?

Part of the answer is that the modern species lives in deep waters, and if
you look at geological maps of the past several million years, you'll see
that there has not been too many examples of the sort of tectonic activity
that would have brought deep ocean floor deposits to the surface.

>
> With these thoughts in mind, let me pose a hypothetical for you to
> shoot down (That's the whole point of hypothetical questions you
> know... to be shot down. That is the goal of the scientific method.
> Once a person stops trying to shoot down hypothesis and theories of
> science, science is not longer science.).
>
> What if the fish found in the lower layers of the geologic column were
> "sorted" according to various factors such as environmental habitat
> and body composition (to include size, shape, and density)? According
> to your numbers, there are fossils of modern genera all the way back
> to the Jurassic. Is there anything distinct about these modern genera
> that separate them from those genera found earlier in the geologic
> column? Maybe, like the Coelacanth, the modern genera of fishes lived
> in places "non-conducive" to fossilization during those early
> fossilization events or catastrophes? Perhaps modern fish have
> certain physical properties that helped them avoid these early rapid
> burial events? Obviously certain fish, such as the Coelacanth were
> able to avoid many of these events over the course of 80-million-years
> that buried other types of fish just fine. How can some rapid burial
> events bury some types of fish and not others? Interesting question I
> think. Such selectivity seems to happen in any case.

It could also be that the modern coelacanth has a very restricted range.

>
> But, I am probably wrong of course. Please though, explain to me the
> error of my ways yet again.

Many incorrect assumptions. You assume that everything fossilized had to
have been covered in sediment suddenly, as the result of a catastrophy
(though some certainly are). You assume that the fossil record has to be
continious. You assume the modern coelacanth is the same species as fossil
coelacanth species You propose that for a certain period of time, fish were
able to avoid fossilization. How a dead fish would manage this is open to
some wild speculation, to be sure.

Boikat

>
> Sincerely,
>
> Sean
>

[Glenn Morton]

Sean Pitman M.D. <Sean...@juno.com> wrote in message
news:fd67d42a.02092...@posting.google.com...
> Glenn Morton
>

> I went to your web page detailing the North Sea conformity. As part of
> your intro you said, "Unconformities are evidence of erosion between
> two strata and would take much time if the rocks were hard while they
> were being eroded." There are a couple questions I have concerning
> this statement as it compares to the seismic data you present.
>
> If you are arguing that long periods of time are required for these
> formations, how can you support yourself by assuming long periods of
> time in your argument to begin with? This seems a bit circular to me.
> You made a circular assumption by saying, "IF the rocks were hard."

It is not an assumption, even though I phrased it that way. We find cobbles
of rocks (rocks from below the unconformity) which have been eroded and are
found in conglomerates along the unconformity. That proves that there has
been time for the rocks to harden, and that they were hard when eroded.
Thus, logically, if they were hard, then it took much time to erode 12,000
feet of strata. It is a fact that they were hard, not an assumption.

[snip]

>
> I also have some questions concerning the various layers themselves.
> Consider, for example, the Jurassic layer in your first figure. The
> various sedimentary lines that form the Jurassic are very much in a
> U-shape. I have seen similar shapes and even hair pin turns in such
> sedimentary layers. It is interesting to me that these hair-pin turns
> have no evidence of rock fracture. If you try to bend a solid rock,
> it simply won't bend. It will break and crumble first. How do you
> explain the absence of fractures in such hair-pin turns. Are such
> fractures found in this Jurassic U-shaped layer that you say was solid
> rock by the time of its erosion? It seems rather obvious to me that
> these layers were bent after all of them had been laid down. If the
> bending process had occurred before all of them had been laid down,
> the subsequent layers would not be bent.

First off, seismic data won't show fractures because of resolution issues.
We don't have infinite detail in a seismic picture. That said, rocks can
and do bend if under enough pressure and if they are bent slowly enough.
Such bends as you see are in and of themselves evidence of time. The rocks
weren't laid down like that. They were laid down on a relatively flat
surface and then bent by tectonic forces. Once again evidence of time.

>
> If my hypotheses, as present so far, hold true in your eyes, let me
> pose a scenario and then you shoot it down... ok? What if all the
> layers in this area were formed rapidly on a flat surface? They would
> still be soft for a good while and thus flexible. Then, what if some
> huge local seismic event occurred soon after their formation that bent
> them into hills and valleys? There would be no evidence of rock
> fracture since all the layers would still be flexible or malleable.
> Then, what if this seismic event cause huge tidal actions in the local
> area. Such large tidal forces traveling rapidly across the newly
> formed layers might cause very rapid erosion to take place, thus
> leveling the hills described in your diagram and filling in the
> overlying area with parallel layers of sediment as is portrayed in
> your diagram. All the contact zones between the various layers would
> be crisp in this scenario, without much evidence of long surface
> exposure or general erosion.

If the sediments were soft, we wouldn't find hardened cobbles along the
unconformity. If the sediments were soft, they couldn't form the hills you
want because landslides would prevent them. The largest angle of repose for
soft sediment is in the neighborhood of 30 degrees. These rocks are
reposing at angles much higher than that. The yellow-green boundary in
http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/NorthS2.jpg is standing at 45
degrees. Soft rocks simply won't allow that angle of repose.

[snip]

> No, I do not think that the Grand Canyon is just like every other area
> of the geologic column in the world. However, it does represent a
> significant portion of what the column looks like in the rest of the
> world. Most of the layers in the geologic column are generally
> parallel with respect to each other. Even so, this is not my main
> concern. My main problem is is with the contact zones between each of
> the layers. They are even and are generally parallel with the contact
> zones above and below given a perpendicular line drawn between them.
> They lines of contact are also generally very crisp and even, without
> evidence of long surface exposure. This observation can be seen a lot
> more places than the Grand Canyon. Please explain the existence of
> such crisp contact zones. Evidence that non-crisp contact zones exist
> in some places does not explain their overwhelming presence in most
> places.

You didn't pay any attention to the log I showed you. Most layers show
transitions between various layers. Don't ask this again without at least
looking at what I am trying to get you to look at
http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/logNS2.jpg

> Now, are you saying that the Chinle formation no longer covers areas
> of Arizona or that it no longer covers the Grand Canyon? Obviously it
> was eroded from the Grand Canyon, or else there wouldn't be a canyon.
> However, its presents can still be found, as you noted, on the
> southeast side. But, how do you know that the caves had to have
> formed and collapsed, "prior to the erosion of the Triassic strata"?
> What if the Triassic strata had formed, then been eroded down to the
> level of the Chinle Formation, which then collapsed into the
> underlying caves?

It no longer covers most of north central Arizona. Only a remnant, what is
called an outlier exists on the SE edge on one small hill. There are cobble
of Chinle in the breccia pipes in what used to be caves in the Redwall in
the walls of the Grand canyon. The Chinle is to be found further north
covering vast areas. Thus, prior to the erosion of the canyon, the Chinle
was eroded from most of the region (not just where the canyon exists today).

As to the timing, the breccia pipes I speak of are circular in shape and are
relatively small arealy. Erosion from flowing surficial water doesn't erode
that geometry. Only solution-dissolution processes produce that kind of
structure and that is always associated with caves.

>
> As far as the formation of the caves, is it impossible for caves to
> form underground rapidly if given enough water flow or acidity? Some
> suggest that many limestone caves (10-15%), such as Carlsbad Cave, are
> formed with the use of sulfuric acid instead of the much weaker
> carbonic acid that is usually thought to form such limestone caves. I
> have been informed, and if wrong I'm sure you will correct me, that
> geologists are not in complete agreement on the exact process required
> to formed limestone caves. If the sediments were still relatively
> soft, rapid water flow with high acidity would seems to me to be
> clearly capable of creating such caverns with resulting collapses of
> the sediments above. In fact, I would expect it. How is this
> scenario misguided?

It is true that suphuric acid helped carve Carlsbad, but that was in
association with the maturation and expulsion of oil and gas which is found
just east of there in the Delaware basin of west Texas.

Limestone isn't deposited soft. It is deposited hard. Thus, you can't
always have the soft sediment argument to help you. When shells of animals
are deposited, they form a rubble, but water movement, dissolution and
re-deposition rapidly converts this to hard material within a couple of feet
under the water bottom.

Secondly, if you want the limestone to be deposited soft in a one year
flood, you have to explain why there is 200,000 time more organic matter, in
the form of broken animal shells, than currently exists in all the biosphere
of the earth. Are you seriously saying that the pre-flood world was
thousands of feet deep in marine shells all of whom were alive? There simply
is too many dead animals in limestones to be able to fit into one pre-flood
biosphere. When you look at this data, realize that the entire carbon
content of the present biosphere is 0.3 on the same scale. (See
J.M. Hunt, "Distribution of Carbon in Crust of Earth," Bull.
AAPG, Nov. 1972, p. 2273-2277. p.2274)

Carbon in sedimentary rocks in 10^18 g
All sedimentary rocks Insoluble organic carbon Carbonate
Shales 8,900 9,300
Carbonates 1,800 51,100
Sandstones 1,300 3,900
Coal beds thicker
than 4.6 m 15 feet 15

Nonreservoir rocks soluble organic carbon
Asphalt 275
Petroleum 265

Reservoir rocks
Heavy oil and asphalt 0.6
Petroleum 1.1

Total ~12,600 ~64,000
John M. Hunt, Petroleum Geochemistry and Geology, (New York: W.
H. Freeman and Co., 1996), p. 19

So, how do you explain 213,000 times more organic, life-derived carbon in
the sediments than exists in the biosphere?

> If I am correct in this understanding, a karst is another term for
> pipe-like fault or cave. Why can't such caves form rapidly
> underground?... especially following a seismic event and rapid
> flooding? Some publications have suggested that karst formation could
> be rapid secondary to the action of sulfuric acid.
>
> Hill, C.A., 1990. Sulfuric acid speleogenesis of Carlsbad Cavern and
> its relationship to hydrocarbons, Delaware Basin, New Mexico and
> Texas. American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin,

> 74:1685-1694.

I know Carol I don't think she is referring to Noah's flood. Carol and I
have our differences, but she knows that the cave formation took longer than
you want, even with her mechanism. I would suggest that you actually read
what it is that you cite. Carol says (p. 1692):
"From paleomagnetic dating of cave sediment and uranium-series and
electron-spin-resonance dating of speleothems, Hill (1987) estimated the age
of Guadalupe caves to be late Pliocene to Pleistocene, a judgment that
agreed with the field evidence of King (1948). Thus, hydrogen sulfide
migration from basin to reef has probably occurred during the last 3 m.y.,
in direct response to regional uplift."

> You don't seem to get my question. I understand that there are deep
> channels in the geologic column. These are to be expected with rapid
> formation and a quick run-off of the waters that formed these layers.

Woah, quick run-off WHERE??? You have a flooded world, not an emergent
world. The only place you should find channels is AT THE VERY END OF THE
FLOOD WHEN THE WATER WAS ACTUALLY RUNNING OFF. THAT MEANS THAT CHANNELS
SHOULD ONLY BE FOUND ON THE SURFICIAL SEDIMENTS NOT DEEP IN THE GEOLOGIC
COLUMN LIKE THE HERMIT SHALE1!!!!

> The same thing could happen over long periods of time. Rivers could
> slowly form canyons and channels as the ones you describe. As these
> rivers were slowly carving away their canyons, what was happening to
> the surrounding surface of the ground during this time? Was it not
> being eroded as well? Was rain and wind not changing the landscape
> over the time that this river carved out its canyon over thousands or
> millions of years? Where is the evidence of this erosion between the
> contact zones of the various layers that surround the rivers and
> canyons that you speak of? The contact zones are so crisp and even
> relative to each other. It must have been an extremely flat and
> protected place millions of years ago.

You keep claiming that all contacts are crisp. Some crisp contacts are to a
total change in lithology, sand to limestone, or shale to limestone. But
even in these cases there is often a marl in between.

>
> I am not afraid or lazy here. Also I do not think that geologists who
> believe in evolution are liars. I believe that they truthfully report
> the facts. I agree with you that these geologic formations exist. I
> do not necessarily understand or interpret them the way you do
> however. I do not understand that they had to have taken eons of time
> to form. In short, I just do not understand the long-time-span
> significance of this erosion that you speak of since it seems to me
> that such formations could easily be formed rapidly. However, the
> general crispness of the contact zones between these layers shows a
> lack of long exposure to the effects of wind, rain, etc. that is
> required for your position to hold. Or so it seems to me.

See an article on paleosoil (paleosols actually) on my web page by Jonathan
Clarke. There are plenty of soil profiles found in the geologic column. You
haven't gone looking for them. They are your evidence of much time.

http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/paleosol.htm

>
> > > I personally sat down with an evolutionary geologist and asked him why
> > > the contact zones between various geologic layers were generally so
> > > crisp and why erosion had not removed entire sections of such layers
> > > or preserved the undulations of prior surfaces. He explained that
> > > subsequent catastrophic events leveled the previously uneven surface
> > > of the lower layer(s).
> >
> > I don't ever buy stories like that. Nameless fellows who have been
spoken
> > with. Name the guy and lest see if he says what you thought he did.
In
> > other words, I am challenging you to produce evidence for what you say,
> > which is no better nor worse than anyone in science should be treated.
Who
> > is this anonymous person? What is his e-mail so I can ask him about this
> > conversation?
>
> He is not involved in this discussion, so I am not going to make his
> name or especially e-mail address public without his permission. You
> may disbelieve that I talked to such a person, but that is besides the
> point. I only mentioned this event in order to present some sort of
> argument to explain your position. I then challenge that argument.
> If this argument is in fact a misrepresentation of your position, then
> say so. It is the argument here that is important, not the person.

At the very least, you can ask the guy for permission or alert him that his
name (even though nameless, is being smeared. Give him a chance to defend
himself.

> > I have probably drilled 100 oil wells in my career (most have been
offshore
> > where they are extremely expensive and thus few are drilled). Most
contacts
> > in the geologic column are NOT sharp. They almost always grade into the
> > next deposit. There are exceptions of course but what you say is false.
I
> > will post a log to my web page.
> > http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/logNS2.jpg
>
> I went to the link you gave, and it showed changes in the "velocity of
> sound" as it is propagated through various layers of the geologic
> column. This is not what I am talking about when I use the words
> "sharp" or "crisp" when speaking of the contact zones between various
> layers. Please, show me a VISUAL example of the general "melding" of
> contact zones between layers in the geologic column. An example of
> fuzzy sound wave propagations doesn't do the job. As far as I have
> ever noted the contact zones between the various layers of the
> geologic column ARE sharp and crisp. Since I am not a geologist
> however, please do show me the error of my thinking here.

The problem is that you don't understand what you are looking at. You also
missed the gamma ray log above. That measures the radioactivity of the
layers. The few sharp changes (red arrows) are the sharp and crisp changes
you are looking for. But they are not always sharp and crisp. The gamma ray
log shows many transitional zones.

>
> > The red arrows are where sharp breaks in rock properties occur. All
other
> > transitions, when compared to both velocity of sound and the gamma ray
> > properties are transitional.
>
> Exactly my point. The "properties" of rocks may be very similar in
> different layers, and yet visually it is very clear that the contact
> zones that separate the layers are as thin and crisp as if sheets of
> glass where laid one on top of the other. The contact zones are
> smooth. If all the layers above were removed and one could walk upon
> a given layer, it would be as smooth as a newly paved parking lot, for
> hundreds and thousands of square kilometers. There might be areas of
> local river or canyon formation, but the rest of the surface would
> have no effect of long exposure to wind or rain.

You haven't looked at enough geology. The fact that there are transitional
zones in that log denies your claim that all layers are like sheets of glass
laid on top of one another. The transitions are visible there also.

> This crispness between contact zones of various layers is not only
> found between layers of marine origin, but is also found between
> layers that supposedly formed while exposed to surface forces of
> erosion such as wind and rain.

Here is evidence of rain.

"In marked contrast with this, the Mauch Chunk is composed
of dull red sandstones and bright red siltstones and shales
attaining a total of over 3,000 feet in thickness. These
beds bear 'fossil' mud cracks and raindrop impressions at
many horizons. Fossils are exceedingly rare and comprise
only fragmentary plant remains and a variety of amphibian
footprints." ~ Charles Schuchert and Carl O. Dunbar,
Textbook of Geology, (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1933),
p. 227.

"In contrast to the preceding Bass, the Hakatai is
dominantly an argillaceous division, generally with a
striking bright orange-red color. Ripple marks and
mudcracks are abundant, and raindrop impressions and salt-
pseudomorphs are not uncommon. The boundary with the
underlying Bass is gradational within a few feet, but the
contact with the Shinumo is quite sharp. The thickness
apparently increases eastwards to the Bright Angel Canyon
where Maxson estimated 800 feet (240 m) to be present."
Trevor D. Ford, and William J. Breed, "The Younger
Precambrian Rocks of the Grand Canyon," Geology of the
Grand Canyon," ed. by William J. Breed and Evelyn C. Roat,
Museum of Northern Arizona/Flagstaff, 1974, p.23-24

"The earliest record of a terrestrial vertebrate is the single
footprint of Thinopus antiquus mentioned above. This is
impressed upon a slab of sandstone and is from the uppermost
Devonian (Chemung). It was found in 1896 by the late
Professor Beecher of Yale and by him presented to the Museum where it is
now treasured. These same beds contain ripple-marks,
and impressions of rain-drops, and land plants also come from
the same general horizon. A characteristic marine mollusc
(Nuculana) is preserved in the footprint slab." ~ Richard Swann Lull,
Organic Evolution, (New York: MacMillan, 1925), p. 491

Saturday, 15 December, 2001, 17:37 GMT
Fossilised rain drops found in India
An Indian geologist says he has discovered imprints of some
of the oldest raindrops on Earth, dating back more than a
billion years. The imprints are exceptionally well preserved and are of
great significance Geologist Chirananda De told the BBC that fossilised rain
imprints were found on a rippled surface in primitive rocks
in the lower Vindhyan range in Madhya Pradesh state.
''These imprints, which are at least 1,600 million years
old, constitute one of the oldest sets of geological
documents for rainfall,'' he said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_17
13000/1713001.stm
accessed 1-26-01

There is lots of evidence like this, but you fail to actually go look for
it.

> > To erode the limestone and form caves of the Mississippian Redwall
strata of
> > the Grand Canyon would take hundreds of thousands of years. Appeals by
some
> > creationists, like Austin that highly acidic waters flowed through the
area
> > are simply straw grasps because no one has ever seen such a thing.
>
> Again, you cannot use as a supporting argument in your favor, the very
> idea that is being challenged. There are two things that you assume
> to be true without supporting yourself. You assume that the
> Mississippian Redwall was already solid rock by the time the caves
> were formed.

As I said earlier, look at the angle of repose. You can't pile particles up
at a 90 degree angle of repose (vertical). They will pore into a hole. I
dare you to experimentally produce a 200' vertical hole in a sand dune. It
will collapse.
Yet by claiming that the sediments were soft when the pipes were formed, you
are claiming that you can produce a 200' vertical hole in a sand dune
because that is what the uncemented limestone particles would be-lime sand.
And I further defy you to build a 1600' cave under a 200' thick pile of
sand. Won't work.

> I don't see this. Consider the following statements:
>
> RECORD IS CATASTROPHIC, DAVID M. RAUP, Chicago Field Museum, Univ. of
> Chicago, "A great deal has changed, however, and contemporary
> geologists and paleontologists now generally accept catastrophe as a
> 'way of life' although they may avoid the word catastrophe... The
> periods of relative quiet contribute only a small part of the record.
> The days are almost gone when a geologist looks at such a sequence,
> measures its thickness, estimates the total amount of elapsed time,
> and then divides one by the other to compute the rate of deposition in
> centimeters per thousand years. The nineteenth century idea of
> uniformitarianism and gradualism still exist in popular treatments of
> geology, in some museum exhibits, and in lower level textbooks....one
> can hardly blame the creationists for having the idea that the
> conventional wisdom in geology is still a noncatastrophic one." Field
> Museum of Natural History Bulletin (Vol.54, March 1983), p.2 1

As I explained, they are not using the term 'catastrophe' in the same way
you are. The catastrophes they speak of are like landslides. That is a
catstrophe, especially ifyou are underneath it. Ask those Russians if it was
a catastrophe when the glacier fell on them. It was a tragedy and a
catastrophe, but it wasn't Noah's flood.

Same for the other quotes

> ALAN V. JOPLING, Dept. of Geology, Harvard, "it is reasonable to
> postulate a very rapid rate of deposition; that is a single lamina
> would probably be deposited in a period of seconds or minutes rather
> than in a period of hours. ...there is factual evidence from both
> field observation and experiment that laminae composed of bed material
> are commonly deposited by current action within a period of seconds or
> minutes." Some Deductions on the Temporal Significance of Laminae,
> Journal of Sedimentary Petrology, Vol. 36, No. 4, pp.880-887.
>

Hey, haven't you been paying attention? The turbidite is an underwater
landslide. Of course the sandy layers were deposited rapidly. Big, deal. It
doesn't mean Noah's flood. We have seen these things be deposited in the
ocean today and they didn't flood the earth, nor did they indicate anything
other than normal deposition.

> "Hanging from a ceiling beam in the 40-year-old building's basement
> are several rows of formations not usually seen so close to ground
> level. Stalactites. Yep, stalactites more than 100 of the squiggly,
> slippery rock formations that thousands of people pay to see in places
> named Carlsbad and Mammoth....They are natural cave ornaments, pure
> and simple....Deputy Chief Ray Hawkins has been parking in the
> basement of the building at Harwood and Main streets since the 1960s
> and can't remember a time when the mineralsickles weren't hanging
> around." Dallas Morning News, 4/4/1994, p. 13A

So? What is that supposed to imply? Noah's flood?

> I agree. It is always good to consider the opposing side of any issue
> from the actual people who think differently than you do. Don't
> forget to keep doing that. You could still be wrong you know... just
> like me. No one ever "arrives" at a full understanding of truth. If
> given the proper evidence, you might have to admit error yet again
> and, God forbid, become a dreaded YEC again. AHHHHhhhhhhhhrghft! ; )
> Of course I might have to become an evolutionist. It is what all
> honest seekers for truth set themselves up for... failure.

I will tell you, if one of you YECs could ever explain the geologic data,
really explain it rather than ignore and mis-interpret it, I would certainly
be willing to return to YEC status. So far all I see is people who never
have even looked at the geologic data, have never drilled a well, have only
gone on geologic field trips with other YECs, telling me that the data isn't
as it is. And You fall into that category, unfortunately.

> > First off, the mountains where there are sediments haven't withstood
> > 'hundreds of millions of erosion'. Places like Everest have only been
> > uplifted over the past 35 million years.
>
> Oh, pardon me! They have withstood 35 million years of erosion! Big
> difference!

Actually, it is a big difference, at least 70 million years. If you want to
be taken seriously, you must get your facts correct. Saying things which are
factually false causes people to ignore you.

At 20cm per thousand years (for the average sedimentary
> rock on a mountain) that is 700,000cm or 7,000 meters of erosion in 35
> million years. Shouldn't this kind of erosion have wiped Mt. Everest
> clean of the geologic column... down to the bare granite layer
> underneath?

It depends. There is 75,000 feet of sediment in the Gulf of Mexico. That
erosion wouldn't wipe that sediment off the map. There is more than that
much sediment contained in the Anadarko basin of Oklahoma.

What preserved the geologic column on places such as Mt.
> Everest? Likewise, what makes the layers of Arizona so resistant to
> erosion? The Colorado River is supposed to be around 10 million years
> old. Lets say that erosion takes away 5cm per thousand years from the
> surface of the very flat sediments of Arizona.

No, that sounds entirely too high for such an arid area.

[math snipped because of bad assumption]

> 7,000 meters of sediment is a whole lot of missing sediment. How much
> "remobilization" takes place on mountains? Is there any evidence to
> suggest that there were other layers extending some 7,000 meters above
> the Mississippian layer that now covers Mt. Everest? What is the
> topmost layer in the foothills and valleys that surround the Everest
> Mountains?

See above.

> > I don't understand the question. Are you saying that more erosion has
> > occurred on the continental shelves than on the continent or what?
>
> According to my understanding, correct me if I am misunderstanding the
> terminology, but the dry land of continents rests on and is part of
> the "continental shelf" that holds them up above the ocean basins.
> According to this definition, I am saying that erosion would remove of
> a fair percentage of the exposed land surface of a continent to sea
> level (if it were to remain at its current level), in 10-15 million
> years. In other words, the current amount of exposed land would be
> eroded away in relatively short order if its open exposure to erosion
> continues.

Sean, what you say above is like me telling you that the tibia is in the
arm. Take some geology before you pontificate on it. What holds the
continents above the sea level is the sialic crust, which is less dense than
the mantle. The continents float like a cork in a sea of rock.

Concerning your calculation, you forget that when continents get flat, and
are covered by grass, the erosion is much less. There is no erosion
occurring in southern Louisiana. There is deposition. The rate of erosion
today is affected by farmers who plow the soil making it easy for soil to
erode.

> I know that the surface land exposure or "sub aerial" exposure of at
> least a good part of the geologic column has gone on for at least 250
> million years if standard geologic time scales are correct. Obviously
> the layers of the Grand Canyon have had subaerial exposure for at
> least 10 million years according to the estimated age of the Colorado
> River. The expected erosion given these time frames is strangely
> lacking.

It is a dry area. Little rain. Erosion is slow and you must account for the
fact that there used to be a whole lot of sediment above the present canyon
rim.

> > You believe in a global flood and that life which got on the ark got off
of
> > it after a year and repopulated the earth. Then explain why we don't
find
> > any modern species of mamamals below the Miocene? Why don't we find any
> > modern genera of fish buried in cretaceous rocks?
>
> This is besides the point. There are many various arguments that
> address the issues of fossils and where they are found throughout the
> column such as local environments niches of various creatures, ability
> for escape, body composition/density etc. However, this is not the
> topic here. The topic here is strictly geology.

Hey, if you don't know it paleontology is a part of geology. Finding a
strange critter in the rock is nothing different than finding a strange
pebble. And if you find this pebble only at one layer in the column (like
iridium particles), you would think that there was some reason they are
found in that layer and not others (meteoritic impact). And if you find a
special critter in only a single layer, you must conclude that it was only
on earth when that layer was deposited. Paleontology is part of geology. So
don't try to get out of its implications by that technique.

I don't have the
> time or energy right now to get into fossils that do not directly
> affect geological formations or how they were formed... although I am
> sure that you know a great deal about the topic. If you wish to
> address this topic further, I would certainly be willing to read what
> you have to say, but I'm not up for a debate at this point about
> fossils. Trace fossils such as tubes created by clams or worms etc.
> that might indicate the timing of layer formation are another story.
> These have something directly to do with how geologic formations were
> formed.

So do the coccoliths, the fossils of single celled animals, which when they
died, their remains were eaten by worms, and their tiny skeletons (which fit
onto a human hair, like a chicken fits on a two-lane road) are expelled in
the excrement. These tiny particles fall through the water column according
to the laws of physics and they would take years to fall 100 m. Yet we find
400 feet of chalk under Dallas, and 2200 feet under New Orleans. Now, if you
use up all the limestone in the sea above these deposits, you would only
deposit a layer a few millimeters thick. At that point, there isn't any more
calcium carbonate to grow more coccoliths. The CaCo3 must be replenished.
To deposit a layer of chalk, 90% pure coccoliths, would require many times
the calcium carbonate found in the oceans. You simply can't do this from
one biosphere.

> Ok, I read your web page, but continue to have a bit of confusion.
> The explanation I got from reading your work as well as others is that
> overthrusts travel very slowly with only portions moving at any one
> time... like the movement of a caterpillar. Ok, lets consider the
> Glarus Overthrust for example. The geologic order of this overthrust
> is Eocene on the bottom, then Jurassic, and then Permian on top. Of
> course it should be Permian, Jurassic, and then Eocene on top. The
> Glarus Overthrust (near Schwanden, Switzerland) extends some 21 miles.
> It appears that they layers have been flipped. But how does one flip
> 21 miles of solid rock?

Remember what Stuart Weinstein said? It is solid state creep. It occurs. It
allows the overthrust to fold over on itself like a rug when the rug is
pushed on a slick floor. It isn't hard to demonstrate this kind of creep in
the labe.

Also, there are no striations or linear
> groves at the contact zones between any of the layers to give some
> indication that they traveled in a linear direction over anything...
> like a caterpillar or otherwise.

That is false. There are slickensides, gouges between the rocks, multiple
faults planes and rubble between the blocks of many overthrusts.

The irregularities at the bottom of
> each formation have not been worn away either. How is this explained?

You have false 'facts' and a wrong assumption.

> > > A few rivers, a
> > > bit of rain, but generally the layers remain uniform.
> >
> > Obviously you haven't seen much seismic data.
>
> I've seen the data you've presented. Still, the layers are generally
> free from the erosion that I would expect to be occurring over
> millions of years.

What do you mean free from erosion. The seismic section in
http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/northseatime.htm has 12000 feet of
erosion. How can you state the above with any form of a straight face?

> >
> > What you are referring to is canyons dug out of soft dirt, not hard
rock.
>
> Again, you assume the point that you are trying to defend.

No, if you will read that again, I am assuming what I believe you are
assuming.

> > I agree, that the sand must have been a bit damp for the preservation of
> > detailed foot prints, but this happens even in deserts. Or could happen
in
> > the Sand Hills of Western Nebraska which gets enough rain today to hold
the
> > dunes in check, but they are former desert dunes.
>
> I still do not see it like this. I must continue looking into this
> particular argument in more detail, but the evidence, even after
> reading the information you've given to me, still seems much more
> consistent with underwater formation with brief periods of aerial
> exposure. For example, how do you explain the decreased angle of the
> sand dunes? The Coconino sand dunes themselves are not like the sand
> dunes of modern deserts. They have an average slope angle of 25deg.
> while the average slope angle of dry sand is 30-34deg. How is this
> explained?

Bull roar!!! Why don't you read something other than creationist trash?
Consider this of the Coconino:
"The inclined laminae, having dips of as much as 34
degrees, have gently curving surfaces that in paces are 60
70 feet long. The beveled upper edges of individual sets
are formed by low-angle erosion surfaces that constitute
the bases of higher sets of cross-strata. Other structures
typical of the Coconino are long, parallel ripple marks,
with rounded crests and oriented with axes parallel to the
dip slopes." Edwin D. McKee, "Paleozoic Rocks of Grand
Canyon," Geology of the Grand Canyon," ed. by William J.
Breed and Evelyn C. Roat, Museum of Northern
Arizona/Flagstaff, 1974, p. 61

Before you parrot some of these people you should go check out to see if
they are telling you the truth in the first place. Don't know where you got
that bit of mis-information, but it isn't correct.

> > No one has argued that these are escape burrows except those desperate
> > creationists who can't account for the time required by this deposit.
>
> Oh yeah? The term, "escape burrows" can be found in non-creationist
> literature quite easily. It is also used to teach evolutionary
> geology in schools. Follow the link:
> http://www.southalabama.edu/geography/haywick/GY112/112-14.htm.
>
> J.M. Moore suggests that "widespread burrows, vertical burrows, escape
> structures, and load structures in Esmerelda County sections suggest
> very rapid deposition." Vertical burrows, or skolithos, are common in
> Member 5 which is the lithostratigrapghic equivalent to what he refers
> to as the Upper Sandstone Unit of the Poleta Formation in his
> Esmerelda County study area. Moore believes that most of this
> lithozome was deposited in "a typical beach and nearshore environment
> similar to those forming today along low gradient coastlines" (cites
> McKee,1957, Reineck, 1972, Singh, 1973). This view is consistent with
> a second marine regression.
>

I was speaking of the burrows I showed you and of the Haymond formation. To
quote something about beaches when we are speaking of turbidites is to
commit a non sequitur.

Of the Haymond I wrote:
> > These are deep layers below wave base. I don't know where you got the
idea
> > that the sand tops were wavy. Do you have a reference?

Sean replied:

>
> Sheehan, M.A. 1988. Ichnology, depositional environment, and
> paleoecology of the upper Pennington Formation (upper Mississippian),
> Dougherty Gap, Walker, County, Georgia. Unpublished Masters Thesis,
> University of Georgia, Athens.
>
> In the shale and sandstone layers found at Dougherty Gap, Walker
> County, Georgia, there were ripple marks on the tops of each sandstone
> layer. According to Sheehan, "these structures formed in response to
> unidirectional currents which occurred either contemporaneously [at
> the same time] or penecontemporaneously [immediately following] with
> sediment deposition." These ripple marks are found on the tops of
> every sandstone layer exposed at this site, including the thinnest
> sandstone layers. These bi-directional current ripples are associated
> with turbidite deposits which have been modified by contour currents.

Sean, this isn't the Haymond If you are going to cite stuff from Georgia
when we are discussing the Haymond of West Texas, you are again committing a
non-sequitur. Have you ever taken a course in logic and do you know what a
non sequitur is?

> > No, Sean, you show that you aren't good at math. I meant to write
> > 1300/5000*365.
>
> LOL - yes of course, you are correct. Just goes to show that someone
> who aced geometry, algebra, trig, physics etc, still gets 2 + 2 wrong
> every now and then. In other words, check everyone's work before you
> believe it. That's what I'm doing with your work.

Yeah, we all get things wrong at times. Me too. But why do you apply a
double standard to my data by checking it out thoroughly, but not doing the
same for the creationsts whom you parrot? God tells us to treat everyone
the same and to not have double standards.

Your are a
> geologist, but I can't simply take your word for things.

But you take at their word, the non-geologists whom you read in those
creationist books? How does that make any sense?

> Given the idea that a single event, such as a flood of 365 days,
> formed all the layers, your calculations seems somewhat rational if
> the deposition of flood waters occurred at the same rate the entire
> time. But what if the first 75% of the layers was laid down in 50
> days? Also, you assume that a worldwide catastrophe of this magnitude
> would have no long lasting effects, such as repetitive floods or huge
> changes in global weather, hurricane rates or seismic events. Such
> events could result in the relatively rapid build up of sedimentary
> layers over the course of many years without requiring millions of
> years.

To deposit the first 75% in 50 days, exasperates the problem

> > If it wasn't then the flood was millions of years ago because you still
have
> > 75,000 feet of regional stratigraphy to be deposited AFTER the Haymond
was
> > deposited.
>
> You assume that the maximum thickness of each of the geologic layers
> would form over the Haymond beds. This clearly doesn't happen over
> much of the globe.

I don't give a flip about the rest of the world. It happens at the Gulf of
Mexico.

The Haymond beds dip east underneath the Mesozoic strata of the Gulf coastal
plain. Those strata in turn dip east under the Tertiary, and the Tertiary+
Mesozoic strata are 75,000 feet thick 300 miles east of the Haymond outcrop.
Seismic and gravity tell us that. See my paper next April in Leading Edge
for a place in the Gulf where the sediments are 50,000 feet thick just south
of the 75,000 foot deep area.

For example, in Arizona, where are the "rest of
> layers" above the uppermost Permian layer? Your estimate of 75,000
> feet of remaining sediment to be deposited seems a bit generous to me.

I am not speaking of Arizona. I am speaking of the Gulf of Mexico. Try to
stay with the area I am speaking of.

> How many feet of sediment are currently formed over the Haymond
> formation? I mean, 75,000 feet is equal to 14.2 miles of sediment.
> Where on earth are such sedimentary layers found?

The Gulf of Mexico along the Southern Louisiana shoreline

For comparison, Mt.
> Everest is only a mere 29,002 feet tall. Of course you might be
> assuming erosion and re-deposit ion, but this defeats your previous
> arguments that such erosion rates as I describe do not happen under
> water. It also would speak against the crisp knife edge contact zones
> found between the various layers. So really then, 75,000 feet?
> Please...

The gravitational and seismic data tell us this. I don't give a crap about
your 'please..' You are the guy who knows nothing about geology.

> Who says that these layers where formed "preflood"? The fact that
> such layers are found over much of the Earth seems that much of the
> Earth was once covered by water at the same time. It was at least a
> very wet place at some time in the past. Also, I have been told that
> vast numbers of these chalk forming creatures can form very rapidly in
> certain situations that give rise to crinoid "blooms." The chalk
> layers in the geologic column can be extremely thick, such as the
> "white cliffs of Dover." Such deposits do not form in deep waters
> because the calcium from the bodies of dead crinoids dissolves before
> it can build up in deep waters. Perturbed shallow waters, such as one
> would expect from a large flooding event, might give rise to massive
> crinoid blooms that deposit diatomatious sediments very quickly. How
> is this thinking in error?

The problem is that to make that many diatoms or coccoliths would quickly
deplete the silica and calcium carbonate in the waters. No more could be
made until most silica or calcium carbonate could be added to the waters
again. You should know enough chemistry to know that one can't simply make
calcium carbonate up out of nothing.

> Not "liquefied"? I suppose then that you mean "dry sand" that is
> still not chemically cemented? Hmmmm... It doesn't seem probable to
> me that dry sand will "squirt" under vertical pressure ether.

This argument of personal incredulity is really sad. You are not the judge
of all knowledge. Just because you don't believe it doesn't mean it hasn't
been observed in many earthquakes around the world. Go look at the sand
dykes injected around St. Louis in the New Madrid earthquake.

Also,
> you didn't answer my question about the "clay cores" that are found in
> some of the clastic dykes. How does clay avoid being unconsolidated
> long enough to "squirt" when the unconsolidated sand squirts?

The clay fractures and comes along with the sand as competent clasts. We
have that in oil well cores in a field in the North Sea.

> It is noble to go with honesty especially if it conflicts with
> personal desire or needs. Just because we might need something to be
> true doesn't make it true. The search for real truth must try to
> avoid personal bias as much as is humanly possible. While this can
> never be completely done by a human being, one should at last be aware
> of the pitfalls of personal bias and make a conscious effort to resist
> bias. Also, one must understand that all humans are subjective
> beings. No one knows all truth. All information must be interpreted
> from a subjective position. Because of this fact, no one and no human
> idea is above challenge. We can all be wrong in our interpretations
> of the external world. Two equally honest people can look at the same
> data and come away with different conclusions about what that data
> means. So, the search for truth is never ending, ever elusive.
> Personal honesty remains the only knowable absolute in this search for
> the truth of the external world.
>
> So, I commend your personal honesty. That is the most important
> thing.

It was that which caused me to reject young-earth creationism. I had a
choice of either ignoring what I saw and lying to myself or rejecting the
falsified view.

[Glenn Morton]

Tracy P. Hamilton <hami...@uab.edu> wrote in message
news:3d9309ac....@maze.dpo.uab.edu...

Unfortunately, that creationist was me. That argument is false and I have
rejected it.

[Noelie S. Alito]

"Keith Littleton" <litt...@katie.vnet.net> wrote in message
news:6hGk9.304567$AR1.13...@bin2.nnrp.aus1.giganews.com...

Aye, it occurs to me that his fracture-free sedimentary
"hair-pin turns" might have been lithified soft-sediment
convolutions. After all, he did mention having seen turbidites,
which often have these convolutions created by disturbed
lamina of mud.

<snip further discussion of of faults, joints et al>

Noelie
--
"I got a rock." --C. Brown

[Bigdakine]

>Subject: Re: Pitman's Pathetic Geology.

>From: Sean...@juno.com (Sean Pitman M.D.)
>Date: 9/26/02 6:46 AM Hawaiian Standard Time
>Message-id: <fd67d42a.02092...@posting.google.com>

>
>Stuart
>
>> > "I also have some questions concerning the various layers themselves.
>> > Consider, for example, the Jurassic layer in your first figure. The
>> > various sedimentary lines that form the Jurassic are very much in a
>> > U-shape. I have seen similar shapes and even hair pin turns in such
>> > sedimentary layers. It is interesting to me that these hair-pin turns
>> > have no evidence of rock fracture. If you try to bend a solid rock,
>> > it simply won't bend. It will break and crumble first. How do you
>> > explain the absence of fractures in such hair-pin turns. "
>>
>> Well Mr. Pitman, you wouldn't know would you?
>
>LOL - That's why I asked... Dr. Weinstein.

It seems to me, your mostly asserting, rather than asking.

>
>> And clearly you went through a
>> great deal of effort to find out.
>
>Not much at all really... just a simple question.
>
>> Does the expression "solid state creep" mean anything to you, Mr Pitman?
>
>Yes, but I don't see good evidence for a heating event in these
>"creeping" layers.

Well, what would you consider evidence of heating to be?

Also, juding from the absence of non-warped
>layers, the warping itself must have happened fairly rapidly... before
>other sedements could accumulate. Or, is this just another silly
>thought of mine? Could be! That's why I'm asking it. If you never
>ask silly questions, you won't get very far.
>

Why not consult the professional literature with the same aplomb as you've
consulted the creationist literature?

>> Under pressure and slow strain rates, you can make rock do all sorts of
>neat
>> things, especially if you heat them up a little as well.
>
>Yeah, especially if you heat them up a little. Where is the evidence
>for this heat you speak of?

Well Mr. Pittman, I've seen some pretty folded up limestones in my time.. often
accompanied by low grade metamorphism as evidenced by mica formation. Regional
metamorphism is accompanied by heat as rocks are squeezed and thickened and
deformed. You can get a good estimate of the temperature a rock faced during
deformation by an examination of its mineral assemblage.

Heat is something thats readily available in the Earth, Mr Pittman. Dig down a
couple of miles.. let me know how you feel.

How long does it take for a 5 foot slab
>of solid rock to warp into a perfect hairpin loop without a single
>fracture?

Depends on temperature and strain rates. But if you look at folding on the
scales of hundreds of meters you'll find all sorts of fractures, axial fans,
etc.

Funny thing about those axial fans*. I've seen plenty of outcrops where the
rock experienced multiple episodes of deformation, such that axial fan
fractures are folded by subsequent deforamtion. How do you explain a folded
axial fan Mr. Pitman if the rocks weren't already lithified? I mean how do you
propose getting an axial fan in rocks that aren't lithified?

*axial fans are a systematic set of fractures whose planes are parallel to the
axial plane of a fold. THis is a plane that intersects that bisects the fold
and intersects the hinge.

>
>> No, Mr. Pitman, there is no difficulty in explaining what you observe. In
>> addition, there are many places where indeed fracture does accompany
>folding.
>
>I personally haven't seem many of these fractured folds.

I have. You lose.

Do you have
>a link to some pictures of such formations? Also, do you have some
>references to rock slabs being folded in real time without cracking?

I've seen it Mr. Pitman.

>How much heat is required? I may be ignorant and you may have all the
>answers... so why shouldn't someone who is ignorant like me ask
>someone like you for the answers?

>
>> We'll just chalk up those remarks to general ignorance.
>
>LOL - Touchy touchy! ; ) That's ok. It is to be expected. You know
>all the answers so I'm sure my questions are quite humerous from your
>perspective.

Your statments are mostly absurd and that is relected in the annoyance in my
tone.

I know if I were you I would just rub it in as much as I
>possibly could.

I rub it in, but only when people go off half-cocked like you have about
something they have little if any first hand knowledge. I didn't sense any
humility on your part, nor do I now.

Oh poor Mr. Pitman! If I were to attempt to diagnose patients I would face
criminal charges.

To bad there are no statutes regarding impersonating Geologists.

> It's always easy to do when you know all the answers.

Mr. Pitman, I hardly need know all the answers, in order to know the ones
you've presented are wrong.

[Glenn Morton]

Sean Pitman M.D. <Sean...@juno.com> wrote in message
news:fd67d42a.02092...@posting.google.com...

> Glenn Morton
>
> I got to thinking about your fossil fish argument. I even went to
> your web page where you discussed this argument in detail. Really, it
> is a very interesting argument. It seems quite reasonable. Like you
> said, I haven't heard it discussed much. Given this, I do have some
> questions or thoughts for you.
>
> I'm sure you know of the Coelacanth. The Coelacanth can be found in
> the geologic column as far back as "360 million years" and as recently
> as "80 million years." Then, it disappears from the fossil record
> entirely. It was thought to have been completely wiped out with the
> dinosaurs, until 1938 when living Coelacanths were found alive and
> well off the east coast of S. Africa. Why then did they disappear from
> the fossil record after such a long presence there? Some argue that
> they used to live in environments "conducive" to fossilization, but
> now they live in caves and under the overhanging marine reefs of
> volcanic islands that are not so conducive to fossilization.

That is why. Most of those deep water environements end up going down the
subducting slabs and disappearing, with their fossils, into the mantle.

>
> Interesting argument I think. Fossilization requires rapid burial or
> else decay will obliterate all traces. It seems to me that
> fossilization is catastrophe dependent. From my understanding,
> practically all fossils of fish show evidence of catastrophic
> burial... en masse. In other words, the fish were alive and well when
> they were suddenly buried alive. There are even some fossils of fish
> in the middle of eating other fish. Also, many of them show
> statistically significant alignment with each other. In other words,

> they are generally found in the same plane of orientation. such as

> would be expected from a current deposit. The same orientation can be
> generally seen with other types of fossils such as plants, shells,
> dinosaurs, etc.
>
> How then did the Coelacanth avoid such catastrophic burials when it
> hadn't been able to avoid them for hundreds of millions of years?
>
> With these thoughts in mind, let me pose a hypothetical for you to
> shoot down (That's the whole point of hypothetical questions you
> know... to be shot down. That is the goal of the scientific method.
> Once a person stops trying to shoot down hypothesis and theories of
> science, science is not longer science.).
>
> What if the fish found in the lower layers of the geologic column were
> "sorted" according to various factors such as environmental habitat
> and body composition (to include size, shape, and density)? According
> to your numbers, there are fossils of modern genera all the way back
> to the Jurassic.

But it is important to note that no modern species is found earlier than the
latest Cretaceous. It is the Port Jackson shark.

Is there anything distinct about these modern genera
> that separate them from those genera found earlier in the geologic
> column? Maybe, like the Coelacanth, the modern genera of fishes lived
> in places "non-conducive" to fossilization during those early
> fossilization events or catastrophes?

There is absolutely nothing, neither size, nor 'density' nor shape separate
modern fish from ancient fish. They both come in all sizes and shapes, but
are different enough to know that the ancient fish aren't the same as modern
ones.

Perhaps modern fish have
> certain physical properties that helped them avoid these early rapid
> burial events?

Maybe, you should also consider the possiblity, just the possibility, that
the burial events didn't actually happen. That is a possibility you know.

Obviously certain fish, such as the Coelacanth were
> able to avoid many of these events over the course of 80-million-years
> that buried other types of fish just fine.

Remember, that the Coelacanth of today is not the coelacanth of the
Cretaceous.

How can some rapid burial
> events bury some types of fish and not others? Interesting question I
> think. Such selectivity seems to happen in any case.
>
> But, I am probably wrong of course. Please though, explain to me the
> error of my ways yet again

The problem is that you refuse to consider even the possibility that your
entire flood model might be wrong. By ignoring that possibility, you rule
out a possible solution to all your problems, geologically speaking.

One more thing. You wanted to see overturned strata. here it is. Lower
picture from
http://datacorp.petris.com/bulletins/2002/04apr/0671/images/fg9.jpg
http://datacorp.petris.com/bulletins/2002/04apr/0671/images/fg17.jpg
both from Shankar Mitra, Fold-accommodation faults, AAPG Bulletin, V. 86,
No. 4 (April 2002), P. 671-694.
If those links don't work, I will get them to you in another way.

[Glenn Morton]

I need to correct something I wrote. It wasn't thePort Jackson Shark which
is the oldest currently existing fish species.

"So characteristic is the form of the teeth in many Sharks that it is
often possible to identify a species from one or two teeth alone, and in the
case of many extinct forms these are the only parts of the fish which
remain,
all the rest of the skeleton having disappeared. Further, in those species
in
which the dentition is of more than one type, it is possible to state
whether a
certain fossil tooth belonged to the upper or the lower jaw, and whether it
occurred in the front or at the side of the jaw. The curious Elfin or
Goblin
Shark (Scapanorhynchus) was first known from some teeth occurring in Upper
Cretaceous strata, but a living specimen of this supposedly extinct form was
found off the coast of Japan in 1898. It is remarkable for the long,
blade-like
snout, separated from the jaws by a deep cleft, and the teeth are of a
characteristic pattern. Recently the known distribution of the species was
further extended in an interesting manner. A 'break' occurred in one of the
deep-sea telegraph cables lying at a depth of 750 fathoms in the Indian
Ocean,
and on its being brought to the surface, the damage was found to have been
caused by a fish which had left one of its teeth embedded in the cable; this
tooth, which had broken off short, was identified as belonging to an Elfin
Shark." ~ J.R. Norman, A History of Fishes, (New York: A. A. Wyn, 1949), p.
124

[Keith Littleton]

In Message-ID: <fd67d42a.02092...@posting.google.com>
Sean...@juno.com (Sean Pitman M.D.) wrote:

>Stuart
>>>"I also have some questions concerning the various
>>>layers themselves. Consider, for example, the Jurassic
>>>layer in your first figure. The various sedimentary
>>>lines that form the Jurassic are very much in a
>>>U-shape. I have seen similar shapes and even hair
>>>pin turns in such sedimentary layers. It is
>>>interesting to me that these hair-pin turns have no
>>>evidence of rock fracture.

-
As I mentioned in another post, seismic data are
not detailed enough to show the fracturing and the
evidence of internal deformation that a person would
find if they examined either an outcrop or a core from
an oil well. In fact, the resolution of seismic data is
typically not enough to see individual beds. Rather, in
seismic data, what a person sees is typically groups of
beds blurred together into individual reflectors that
seismic cross-sections show. Thus, small detailed
features will not show up in seismic sections as shown
in the first couple of figures on Glen Morton's page.
-

>>>If you try to bend a solid rock, it simply won't bend.
>>>It will break and crumble first.

-
If the rock is confined and subject to intense pressure,
it will flow / deform without crumbling. This has been
demonstrated in a number of classic laboratory
experiments. In addition, A person can see direct
evidence that rocks do deform / flow under heat and
pressure by the way pebbles; fossils, e.g. belemonites,
crinoids, trilobites, brachiopods, etc.; trace fossils;
oolites; reductions spots in slates; vesicles and
amygdules in lavas; and cross-beds have been deformed
along with the beds containing them. For example ductile
deformation of limestone in the South Mountain Anticline
in western Maryland is clearly demonstrated by the
presence of deformed oolites within those limestones.
Had the limestones been soft when the deformation
occurred, the oolites would not have been deformed along
with the limestone.
-

>>>How do you explain the absence of fractures in such
>>>hair-pin turns. "

-
There are two answers. If a person goes out in the field
and examines actually outcrops, he or she will find that
the fractures are actually presence in many of these
"hair-pin turns". The presence of fractures demonstrate
that the rocks were lithified and did "crumble" to a
certain extent while being folded. Finally, also if a
person looks at the "hair-pin turns" closely, he or she
will find that the rock also deformed in a ductile
fashion, not as loose sediment, but as a plastic solid
in which either fossils, cobbles, crystals, sand grains,
phenocrysts, or whatever else is contained in the bed
deformed in a manner that would have been impossible if
the rock itself had not been lithified.
-
....Vogon Peotry deleted...
-

>> Does the expression "solid state creep" mean anything
>>to you, Mr Pitman?
>
>Yes, but I don't see good evidence for a heating event
>in these "creeping" layers.

-
If a person studies the literature, there exists a lot
of excellent evidence that the layers were sufficiently
"hot" at the time that they were folded. For example, the
temperature to which a bed of sedimentary rock can be
heated can be estimated by looking at the degree to which
pieces of fossil organic matter that it contains has been
"cooked" using a technique called "vitrinite
reflectance". Using vitrinite reflectance, a person can
estimate the maximum temperature to which sedimentary
rocks were subject. It is used in oil industry to
determine whether potential sources rocks were heated
high enough to have generated hydrocarbons. Similarly,
this technique shows that folded sedimentary rocks were
heated to very temperatures during folded. There is an
guide to vitrinite reflectance in "An Illustrated Guide
to Vitrinite Reflectance" at:

http://www.latrobe.edu.au/pesa/vitrinite/Vitinfo/guideref.html

Those lurkers who are interested in reading more about
vitrinite reflectance can find a selection of publications
that discuss the large amount of research that has
validated the use vitrinite reflectance to estimate the
degree that sedimentary strata have been heated in
"Vitrinite Reflectance Analysis - Selected References -
revised November 2001" at;

http://www.tsop.org/refs/vitrefa.htm

Also, there a number of other techniques, called
"geothermometers" that can be used to estimate the
temperature to which sedimentary rocks were subjected.
They include "fluid inclusions" the microstructure of
calcite, stable isotopes, and many other techniques.
There are numerous ways for geologists to know the
temperatures at which the folding of rocks occurred.

Some useful web pages are:

GEOTHERMOMETRY & GEOBAROMETRY
http://www.utm.edu/~aelshazly/Geol%20481/Thermobarometry.doc

Stable Isotopes Applications I: High Temperatures
http://www.geo.cornell.edu/geology/classes/Geo656/98notes/98Lecture28.pdf
-

>Also, juding from the absence of non-warped layers, the
>warping itself must have happened fairly rapidly...

>before other sediments could accumulate.
-
I have to disagree with you here. If the tectonic movement
is contemporaneous with the deposition of the beds, then
"non-warped beds" will result regardless of the time frame
a person is discussing. The lack of "nonwarped beds" has
nothing to do with the rapidity. Rather, all it indicates
that the deposition of the beds occurred at the same time
that tectonic movement was occurring in the basin.

In fact, Glen discuss a lot of this is the text below the
figures that you are talking about in "The North Sea Rocks
Refute Young-earth Arguments" at:

http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/northseatime.htm
-

>>Under pressure and slow strain rates, you can make rock
>>do all sorts of neat things, especially if you heat them
>>up a little as well.

>Yeah, especially if you heat them up a little. Where is
>the evidence for this heat you speak of?

-
The geothermometers that I discussed above provide an
abundance of evidence for folded sedimentary rocks having
been heated up. You can find all of the evidence you want
in the published literature if you will just get out of
your armchair and take the time to visit the local college
library. I have provided references and URLs with
references that you can look up in such a library.
-

>How long does it take for a 5 foot slab of solid rock
>to warp into a perfect hairpin loop without a single
>fracture?

I am sure that this specific experiment hasn't been
performed. However, there is an abundance of experimental
evidence that has been published in the scientific
literature to show that rock will deform in a ductile
fashion, if the confining pressure and temperature are
high enough. For example, cylinders of rock are regularly
caused to deform in a ductile fashion using machines like
the "Griggs-type solid-medium piston-cylinder apparatus"
shown at:

http://geology.uvm.edu/geodept/geofac/rushmer/TRlab.html

The main reason a slab likely hasn't been deformed is
because nobody has figured out a way to maintain the
heat and confining pressure on a slab necessary for
ductile deformation and bend it at the same time. Even
if Mr. Pitman had a few spare tens of millions of dollars
to fund the design and build such a machine, the
technology needed to perform such an experiment, as far
as I know, simply doesn't exist. However, using the
information from rock deformation research, a smart
structural geologist, who knows this subject more than
I do, might be able to estimate how fast a slab of rock
could be deformed.

There are three types of ductile deformation, plastic
flow, power-law creep, and diffusion creep, which are
discusses and illustrated in detail in lecture notes,
"Lithospheric Deformation" at:
http://www.seismo.unr.edu/ftp/pub/louie/class/plate/deformation.html

and "STRUCTURAL GEOLOGY Lectures 35-36 Models for Ductile
Failure" at:
http://www.geosc.psu.edu/~engelder/geosc465/lect35.rtf

Another discussion of ductile flow can be found in "UNB
GEOLOGY 1001 Lecture 12 - Deformation and Structures" at:
http://www.unb.ca/courses/geol1001a/lec-12.htm

For some very simple experiments that illustrate what
ductile deformation is, a person can go read "BRITTLE
VS. DUCTILE ROCK DEFORMATION" by Marcia Bjornerud at:
http://www.beloit.edu/~SEPM/Earth_Works/Brittle_vs_Ductile.html

>> No, Mr. Pitman, there is no difficulty in explaining
>>what you observe. In addition, there are many places
>>where indeed fracture does accompany folding.

>I personally haven't seem many of these fractured
>folds.

Obviously, you have not looked at many, if any at all, in
the field. Most photographs of fold are from such a
distance that the fractured (joints and faults) nature of
the strata in a fold is not obvious. A person really
needs to look at folds close up to see the numerous
fractures and faults there are in most folds.
-

>Do you have a link to some pictures of such formations?

-
1. A picture of beautiful jointing associated with a major
anticline in arches National Park can be found at:
http://www.geo.mtu.edu/~jeh/Photos/Jpg/b7s5.html

2. An on-line thesis about folded sedimentary rocks in

Douglas County, Oregon provides readily observable
examples of rocks that fractured while they folded.
Figures showing the faulting, fracturing, and ductile
deformation of what were lithified strata at the time
of their folding can be seen in "Outcrop Observations" at:

http://nwdata.geol.pdx.edu/Thesis/fulltext/1998/Stack/
OutcropObservations.html

(The above URL needs to reassembled to work)

Reassembled it is:

http://nwdata.geol.pdx.edu/Thesis/fulltext/1998/Stack/OutcropObservations.html

This is part of a M.S. thesis:

Carol Stack, (1998) An examination of folded Eocene
turbidites, Douglas County, Unpublished M.S. thesis.
Southwestern Oregon. Portland State University, Portland
Oregon.

The entire thesis can be accessed on-line at:
http://nwdata.geol.pdx.edu/Thesis/fulltext/1998/Stack/index.html

1. An excellent discussion of the formation of fractures
in rocks can be found in:

Engelder, T., M. P. Fischer, and M. R. Gross (1993)
Geological aspects of fracture mechanics: Short Course
Manual, Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of
America, Boulder, Colorado.

2. Abundant documentation of fracturing caused by folding
can be found in innumerable published papers. Just a few
of these papers are:

Cruikshank, K. M., and A. Aydin (1994) Role of fracture
localization in arch formation, Arches National Park,
Utah. Geological Society of America Bulletin. vol . 106,
pp. 879-891.

Cruikshank, K. M., and A. Aydin (1995) Unweaving the
joints in Entrada Sandstone, southwest limb of the Salt
Valley anticline, Arches National Park, Utah, U.S.A.
Journal of Structural Geology. vol. 17, pp. 409-421.

Mollema, P., and A. Aydin (1997) Fracture Patterns and
Fault Architecture in East Kaibab Monocline. In J. Close
and T. A. Casey, eds., pp. 63-75, Proceedings of
Symposium on Natural Fracture Systems in the Southern
Rockies. Four Corners Geological Society.

>Also, do you have some references to rock slabs being
>folded in real time without cracking?

At this time, the technology simply doesn't exist to
build machines that can fold rocks and maintain the
pressure needed for ductile deformation to occur. However,
as referenced above, machines have demonstrated "in real
time" experiments that rock can deform / flow in the
manner needed for ductile folding to occur. Starting
with the first classic experiments with Yule Marble,
Griggs and Handin (1951), there have been hundreds of
papers published showing that rocks will flow when
subject to sufficient confining pressure and heat. Any
good textbook on structural geology will summarize the
results of this research.

References cited:

Griggs, D. T. and J. W. Handin (1939) Deformation of
Yule Marble", part 2, predict fabric changes. Geology
Society America Bulletin, Vol. 62, pp. 863-885.

>How much heat is required?

Depends on the rock type. For example, salt "flows" at
much lower temperatures and pressures than sandstone and
limestone. This and its lighter density explains is why
it readily flows and rises to form salt domes. Also, the
temperature depends on confining pressure. To answer this
question, you need to specify either depth or pressure at
and a specific rock type you are talking about occurs.
The simplest thing for everyone involved if for you to
look at the temperature and pressure diagrams that you
should be able to find in a good textbook on rock
mechanics. This will answer specific questions that you
might have.

....more Vogon Poetry deleted...

Have Fun

Keith
New Orleans, LA

[sds]

"Jon Fleming" <jo...@fleming-nospam.com> wrote in message
news:jd06puopu1gu1dqr0...@4ax.com...

Thanks.

Does this mean that a cold, hard rock, if subjected to steady pressure for
long enough, will "creep" indefinitely without fracturing?

And do you mean that creep is similar to diffusion *only* in that they both
depend on temperature, or do you mean that the mechanisms are similar at the
molecular level? Is "creep" as it pertains to a hard brittle substance
(i.e., a rock, not mild steel) well understood by chemists/geologists?

[Jon Fleming]

On Thu, 26 Sep 2002 21:37:09 +0000 (UTC), "sds" <s...@mp3.com> wrote:

>
>"Jon Fleming" <jo...@fleming-nospam.com> wrote in message
>news:jd06puopu1gu1dqr0...@4ax.com...
>> On Thu, 26 Sep 2002 04:14:20 +0000 (UTC), "sds" <s...@mp3.com> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >"Bigdakine" <bigd...@aol.comGetaGrip> wrote in message
>> >news:20020925205647...@mb-fp.aol.com...
>> >> >Subject: Re: Pitman's Pathetic Geology.
>> >> >From: Sean...@juno.com
>> >> >Date: 9/25/02 1:21 PM Hawaiian Standard Time
>> >
>> >[snip]
>> >
>> >> Does the expression "solid state creep" mean anything to you, Mr
>Pitman?
>> >Under
>> >> pressure and slow strain rates, you can make rock do all sorts of neat
>> >things,
>> >> especially if you heat them up a little as well.
>> >
>> >Got a favorite link for info on "creep"? I thought heat was pretty much
>> >required.
>>
>> Creep is very similar to diffusion; the rate is exponential with
>> temperature. If you've got lots of time ...
>
>
>Thanks.
>
>Does this mean that a cold, hard rock, if subjected to steady pressure for
>long enough, will "creep" indefinitely without fracturing?

Pretty much, yes.

>And do you mean that creep is similar to diffusion *only* in that they both
>depend on temperature, or do you mean that the mechanisms are similar at the
>molecular level?

There is some similarity on the molecular level. Both involve
physical movement of atoms and molecules within the overall structure.
Creep also involves motion of crystal defects.

> Is "creep" as it pertains to a hard brittle substance
>(i.e., a rock, not mild steel) well understood by chemists/geologists?

Pretty well, yes.

[sds]

"Noelie S. Alito" <noe...@deadspam.com> wrote in message
news:amvhgi$9nc1d$1...@ID-117948.news.dfncis.de...

But is this "creep"? Steady pressure applied to a solid will result in
deformation (strain) over [sometimes long periods of] time. This is creep.
It's more than diffusion alone - stress has to be applied. I'm wondering if
a brittle substance, such as a rock, will behave this way when it isn't
anywhere near some sort of melting temperature. Steel, or copper and lead
as you mentioned, will do this, even when they are cold. But something like
concrete is what I'm wondering about. And we aren't talking about
metamorphic rock - at least that's not what's on my mind. It's the
curvature of the sedimentary layers in the geologic column I'm wondering
about.

I have some creep properties of some materials, but "rock" isn't on my list.
The closed thing I have is borosilicate, which doesn't "creep" significantly
until 1200 F, according to my data. And I don't know what "significant"
means in this context. My reference isn't clear on that.

[Jon Fleming]

On Thu, 26 Sep 2002 22:25:57 +0000 (UTC), "sds" <s...@mp3.com> wrote:

>I have some creep properties of some materials, but "rock" isn't on my list.
>The closed thing I have is borosilicate, which doesn't "creep" significantly
>until 1200 F, according to my data. And I don't know what "significant"
>means in this context. My reference isn't clear on that.

It probably means something like "noticeable deformation in a period
of time much less than a human lifetime".

[Harlequin]

Keith Littleton <litt...@katie.vnet.net> wrote in

news:GSKk9.303373$z91.13...@bin3.nnrp.aus1.giganews.com:

>>>>If you try to bend a solid rock, it simply won't bend.
>>>>It will break and crumble first.
> -
> If the rock is confined and subject to intense pressure,
> it will flow / deform without crumbling. This has been
> demonstrated in a number of classic laboratory
> experiments. In addition, A person can see direct
> evidence that rocks do deform / flow under heat and
> pressure by the way pebbles; fossils, e.g. belemonites,
> crinoids, trilobites, brachiopods, etc.; trace fossils;
> oolites; reductions spots in slates; vesicles and
> amygdules in lavas; and cross-beds have been deformed
> along with the beds containing them. For example ductile
> deformation of limestone in the South Mountain Anticline
> in western Maryland is clearly demonstrated by the
> presence of deformed oolites within those limestones.
> Had the limestones been soft when the deformation
> occurred, the oolites would not have been deformed along
> with the limestone.

I will omit the resest of Mr. Littleton's excellent response.

I have often seen these sort of claims being made for the
YECs. The demonstration that solid rock can bend
under the appropriate circumstances and evidence that it
did would provide a valuable FAQ for The T.O. Archive if
someone would be willing to write one up.

--
Anti-spam: replace "usenet" with "harlequin2"

[Bigdakine]

>Subject: Re: Pitman's Pathetic Geology.

>From: "sds" s...@mp3.com
>Date: 9/26/02 11:37 AM Hawaiian Standard Time
>Message-id: <amvujq$jnt$1...@slb7.atl.mindspring.net>

>
>
>"Jon Fleming" <jo...@fleming-nospam.com> wrote in message
>news:jd06puopu1gu1dqr0...@4ax.com...
>> On Thu, 26 Sep 2002 04:14:20 +0000 (UTC), "sds" <s...@mp3.com> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >"Bigdakine" <bigd...@aol.comGetaGrip> wrote in message
>> >news:20020925205647...@mb-fp.aol.com...
>> >> >Subject: Re: Pitman's Pathetic Geology.
>> >> >From: Sean...@juno.com
>> >> >Date: 9/25/02 1:21 PM Hawaiian Standard Time
>> >
>> >[snip]
>> >
>> >> Does the expression "solid state creep" mean anything to you, Mr
>Pitman?
>> >Under
>> >> pressure and slow strain rates, you can make rock do all sorts of neat
>> >things,
>> >> especially if you heat them up a little as well.
>> >
>> >Got a favorite link for info on "creep"? I thought heat was pretty much
>> >required.
>>
>> Creep is very similar to diffusion; the rate is exponential with
>> temperature. If you've got lots of time ...
>
>
>Thanks.
>
>Does this mean that a cold, hard rock, if subjected to steady pressure for
>long enough, will "creep" indefinitely without fracturing?

TO a point. If the temperature is to low, you may experience the phenomanon of
strain hardening. It is just this phenonanon that let H. Jeffrys awry. Old
Harold thought the mantle would strain harden after a few hundre million years,
and so never bought into plate tectonics.. On long time scales rock will behave
like a highly viscous fluid. However, it will strain harden.

THis is not a problem when it comes to obtaining the deformation seen in
crustal rocks.

>
>And do you mean that creep is similar to diffusion *only* in that they both
>depend on temperature, or do you mean that the mechanisms are similar at the
>molecular level?

Similar at the molecular leve. Diffusion in this case refers to the diffusion
of vacacies in the crystal lattice. Vacancies are the simplest form of a
lattice defect in which an atom is missing form where one should be. If you
succeed in propagating out the vacancies you significantly increase the
viscosity.

However, at high enough temperatures, new ones spontaneously form.

> Is "creep" as it pertains to a hard brittle substance

Whether something is brittle or not, depends on the strain rate which is
applied. Take for example glass. Hit it with a basball (high strain rate) it
shatters. Place it on a shelf for a few centuries and there will be some flow
from top to bottom.

THe behavior of a given material may be sensitive to many things, including
heat, pressure, strain rate.. etc.

>(i.e., a rock, not mild steel) well understood by chemists/geologists?

The basic mechanisms are understood well enough; there are many other creep
mechanisms besides diffusion creep.

[sds]

> I mean how do you
> propose getting an axial fan in rocks that aren't lithified?

Just a quick question -

I understand there is evidence to indicate the layers were solid when they
deformed. But ignoring that for a minute, would a layer of semi-dried mud
crack this way (axial fans) from being folded rapidly - if not during the
folding process, maybe sometime later as it dried out more?

Thanks

[sds]

"Keith Littleton" <litt...@katie.vnet.net> wrote in message
news:GSKk9.303373$z91.13...@bin3.nnrp.aus1.giganews.com...

> In Message-ID: <fd67d42a.02092...@posting.google.com>
> Sean...@juno.com (Sean Pitman M.D.) wrote:
> >Stuart

[snip a little bit of great stuff]

> A person can see direct
> evidence that rocks do deform / flow under heat and
> pressure by the way pebbles; fossils, e.g. belemonites,
> crinoids, trilobites, brachiopods, etc.; trace fossils;
> oolites; reductions spots in slates; vesicles and
> amygdules in lavas; and cross-beds have been deformed
> along with the beds containing them.

[snip a lot of great stuff that I wish I had time to study]

Somebody bear with me and tell me if I seem to be missing this specific
point. This sentence or two from Littleton (and another one somewhere in
his post) makes me think there are some things - in part, fossils, I
gather - found in the bent layers that themselves are bent, and that if the
layers were soft when bent, these fossils would not likely be bent also.

First, does it sound like I understand the point, at least on a simplistic
level?

Second, forgive my ignorance, but do the particular critters found "bent" in
these layers tend to be A) hard-shelled, B) soft-shelled, or C) no-shelled -
or are they just D) a mixture of all types?

Do we find these bent fossils in a particular layer A) most places, B) many
places, C) few places, or D) only rarely?

What about bent pebbles? Are they "obviously" bent?

Do we find definitely-bent pebbles A) most places, B) many places, C) few
places, or D) rarely?

If you want to, to make it easy, you can just hit a few letters, and a
couple of yes's or no's to answer these.

Thanks

[Bigdakine]

>m: "sds" s...@mp3.com
>Date: 9/26/02 2:00 PM Hawaiian Standard Time
>Message-id: <an071p$4q2$1...@slb6.atl.mindspring.net>

>
>> I mean how do you
>> propose getting an axial fan in rocks that aren't lithified?
>
>Just a quick question -
>
>I understand there is evidence to indicate the layers were solid when they
>deformed.

> But ignoring that for a minute, would a layer of semi-dried mud
>crack this way (axial fans) from being folded rapidly -

Not that I've seen. But do an experiment. Take a layer of semi-dried mud and
fold it rapdily.

See what you get.

if not during the
>folding process, maybe sometime later as it dried out more?

No. Limestone is not simply *dried out mud*...

And as I mentioned, the axial fan was folded by a subsequent deformation.
Clearly the rock was solid for both the initial deformation which produced the
axial fan and the subsequent deformation which folded the fan.

[sds]

"Boikat" <boi...@bellsloth.net> wrote in message
news:FgIk9.21027$Ov6.2...@e3500-atl1.usenetserver.com...

>
> "Sean Pitman M.D." <Sean...@juno.com> wrote in message
> news:fd67d42a.02092...@posting.google.com...

[snip]

> > There are even some fossils of fish
> > in the middle of eating other fish.
>
> Yes, there is a rather famous fossil from Kansas, where a large fish died
> while trying to eat a big fish. The large fish died because the big fish
> blocked water from passing over the gills.

"Thousands of such fossils have been found", according to a source of mine -
a source which I won't divulge even if my treasured $25 hard-copy of "In the
Beginning" depended on it!

btw, is there any way to determine if these fish having lunch *were* covered
"rapidly" or not? Seems, given nothing more to go on but the nature of the
fossil, rapid burial is a logical speculation. But I'll be the first to
admit that I don't know what other evidence there may be in the vicinity
which could indicate relatively slow burial.

So, yes, this is yet another question. Do we know one way or the other
about the rapidity of burial for fossils of this particular type?

Also, in the photo I've seen of this (I don't know if it's the one from
Kansas you mentioned) the fish's dinner doesn't look particularly large -
not large enough to cause any real problems like those you mentioned. But I
don't know the limitations involved here, so I can't argue that your
explanation for the fish's death is not valid.

[Stanley Friesen]

"sds" <s...@mp3.com> wrote:
>[snip a little bit of great stuff]
>
>> A person can see direct
>> evidence that rocks do deform / flow under heat and
>> pressure by the way pebbles; fossils, e.g. belemonites,
>> crinoids, trilobites, brachiopods, etc.; trace fossils;
>> oolites; reductions spots in slates; vesicles and
>> amygdules in lavas; and cross-beds have been deformed
>> along with the beds containing them.
>
>[snip a lot of great stuff that I wish I had time to study]
>
>Somebody bear with me and tell me if I seem to be missing this specific
>point. This sentence or two from Littleton (and another one somewhere in
>his post) makes me think there are some things - in part, fossils, I
>gather - found in the bent layers that themselves are bent, and that if the
>layers were soft when bent, these fossils would not likely be bent also.
>
>First, does it sound like I understand the point, at least on a simplistic
>level?
>

Yes. (Note, deformed oolites and the like are even stronger evidence of
prior lithification than deformed fossils: oolites are small solid
pellets of lime, about the size of a sand grain, those are not easily
deformed).

>Second, forgive my ignorance, but do the particular critters found "bent" in
>these layers tend to be A) hard-shelled, B) soft-shelled, or C) no-shelled -
>or are they just D) a mixture of all types?

D) and include bones.

>
>What about bent pebbles? Are they "obviously" bent?

Some certainly are - though stretched might be a better term in many
cases.

[Stanley Friesen]

Sean...@juno.com (Sean Pitman M.D.) wrote:

>I'm sure you know of the Coelacanth. The Coelacanth can be found in
>the geologic column as far back as "360 million years" and as recently
>as "80 million years."

No, not *the* Coelacanth, *a* coelacanth. There were, formerly, *many*
species of coelacanth. Now there is *one* species.

>Then, it disappears from the fossil record
>entirely.

Then *they* disappear from the fossil record entirely.

>It was

*They* were ...

>thought to have been completely wiped out with the
>dinosaurs,

No, 80 million years ago is 15 million years *before* the extinction of
the dinosaurs.

>until 1938 when living Coelacanths were found alive and
>well off the east coast of S. Africa.

until *one* species of living Coelacanth was found living ...

> Why then did they disappear from
>the fossil record after such a long presence there?

Most species became extinct, and only one lineage (series of closely
related species) survived. That lineage was specialized for life in a
remote habitat with very poor fossilization.

> Some argue that
>they used to live in environments "conducive" to fossilization, but
>now they live in caves and under the overhanging marine reefs of
>volcanic islands that are not so conducive to fossilization.

Pretty much, yes. (Not sure about the "under overhanging marine reefs"
part - I would think that would enhance not hinder fossilization, but I
could be wrong).

>
>Interesting argument I think. Fossilization requires rapid burial or
>else decay will obliterate all traces. It seems to me that
>fossilization is catastrophe dependent.

In the local, everyday sense of the word, sort of. "Rapid" burial can
still be gradual, as long as it is more rapid than decomposition.
Decomposition can be relatively slow in some habitats.

> From my understanding,
>practically all fossils of fish show evidence of catastrophic
>burial... en masse.

Not all, just some. Now the best fossil sites *are* local catastrophes,
by and large. But this is true for most non-plankton fossils. Still,
more fossil sites are just normal single burials than are mass burials.

[Numerically there may be more fossils from the few good sites, just
because a few sets of a hundred specimens each naturally outnumber a
hundred solitary specimens].

>How then did the Coelacanth avoid such catastrophic burials when it
>hadn't been able to avoid them for hundreds of millions of years?

Habitat. Such burials only happen in certain environments

[Stanley Friesen]

"Glenn Morton" <glenn....@btinternet.com> wrote:
>It is not an assumption, even though I phrased it that way. We find cobbles
>of rocks (rocks from below the unconformity) which have been eroded and are
>found in conglomerates along the unconformity.

Ah yes, basal clasts. Forgot about those.

Quite common they are along various sorts of unconformities.

>
>See an article on paleosoil (paleosols actually) on my web page by Jonathan
>Clarke. There are plenty of soil profiles found in the geologic column. You
>haven't gone looking for them. They are your evidence of much time.
>
>http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/paleosol.htm

Fossil soils are immensely abundant in the geologic column. Almost any
significant riparian depositional system has a great deal of fossil
soil, unless it is dominating almost entirely by channel deposits.
Formations like the Hell Creek and Morrison are *mostly* fossil soils.

I have seen a road-cut in the Morrison Formation with five or six
stacked soil profiles forming most of the exposure (circa 100 feet
high), with one moderate channel sandstone near the bottom.

>> This crispness between contact zones of various layers is not only
>> found between layers of marine origin, but is also found between
>> layers that supposedly formed while exposed to surface forces of
>> erosion such as wind and rain.
>
>Here is evidence of rain.
>
>"In marked contrast with this, the Mauch Chunk is composed
>of dull red sandstones and bright red siltstones and shales
>attaining a total of over 3,000 feet in thickness. These
>beds bear 'fossil' mud cracks and raindrop impressions at
>many horizons. Fossils are exceedingly rare and comprise
>only fragmentary plant remains and a variety of amphibian
>footprints." ~ Charles Schuchert and Carl O. Dunbar,
>Textbook of Geology, (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1933),
>p. 227.

Then there is the exposure of a layer of the Dakota Sandstone (near that
Morrison road-cut) which contains *obvious* current ripples, of the sort
formed on a beach.

>
>"The earliest record of a terrestrial vertebrate is the single
>footprint of Thinopus antiquus mentioned above. This is
>impressed upon a slab of sandstone and is from the uppermost
>Devonian (Chemung). It was found in 1896 by the late
>Professor Beecher of Yale and by him presented to the Museum where it is
>now treasured. These same beds contain ripple-marks,
>and impressions of rain-drops, and land plants also come from
>the same general horizon. A characteristic marine mollusc
>(Nuculana) is preserved in the footprint slab." ~ Richard Swann Lull,
>Organic Evolution, (New York: MacMillan, 1925), p. 491

And a hundred years or so from the rippled beach I mentioned is a layer
with abundant dinosaur footprints.

And, oh, did I mention, these layers are slanted at about 30 degrees or
so.

>> Again, you cannot use as a supporting argument in your favor, the very
>> idea that is being challenged. There are two things that you assume
>> to be true without supporting yourself. You assume that the
>> Mississippian Redwall was already solid rock by the time the caves
>> were formed.
>
>As I said earlier, look at the angle of repose. You can't pile particles up
>at a 90 degree angle of repose (vertical). They will pore into a hole. I
>dare you to experimentally produce a 200' vertical hole in a sand dune. It
>will collapse.

I dare anybody to try and make a 3' vertical hole in a sand dune! I've
climbed a sand dune - it doesn't take much to get the sand slipping and
sliding away.

>> At 20cm per thousand years (for the average sedimentary
>> rock on a mountain) that is 700,000cm or 7,000 meters of erosion in 35
>> million years. Shouldn't this kind of erosion have wiped Mt. Everest
>> clean of the geologic column... down to the bare granite layer
>> underneath?
>
>It depends. There is 75,000 feet of sediment in the Gulf of Mexico. That
>erosion wouldn't wipe that sediment off the map. There is more than that
>much sediment contained in the Anadarko basin of Oklahoma.

And the amount of sediment in the ocean beyond the Ganges Delta makes
those places look little.

>> exposure. For example, how do you explain the decreased angle of the
>> sand dunes? The Coconino sand dunes themselves are not like the sand
>> dunes of modern deserts. They have an average slope angle of 25deg.
>> while the average slope angle of dry sand is 30-34deg. How is this
>> explained?
>
>Bull roar!!! Why don't you read something other than creationist trash?
>Consider this of the Coconino:
>"The inclined laminae, having dips of as much as 34
>degrees, have gently curving surfaces that in paces are 60
>70 feet long. The beveled upper edges of individual sets
>are formed by low-angle erosion surfaces that constitute
>the bases of higher sets of cross-strata.

For those who do not understand geological terminology, this means a
second set of dunes traveled across the remains of a previous set,
eroding the tops of previous set before leaving their own sediments
behind. (The interdune area of moving dunes sometimes erodes somewhat
into the preceding sediment ahead of the next dune). (Actually it says
a rather more than that, but I do not have time for a full treatise on
dune deposition).

(I wonder if Pitman's source did something silly like average the slope
of the laminae with the slope of the erosion surface?? That would
produce a number like 25deg., in a way that is totally meaningless).

[Bigdakine]

>Subject: Re: Pitman's Pathetic Geology.

>From: "sds" s...@mp3.com
>Date: 9/26/02 2:32 PM Hawaiian Standard Time
>Message-id: <an08tj$ogf$1...@slb7.atl.mindspring.net>

>
>
>"Keith Littleton" <litt...@katie.vnet.net> wrote in message
>news:GSKk9.303373$z91.13...@bin3.nnrp.aus1.giganews.com...
>> In Message-ID: <fd67d42a.02092...@posting.google.com>
>> Sean...@juno.com (Sean Pitman M.D.) wrote:
>> >Stuart
>
>
>[snip a little bit of great stuff]
>
>> A person can see direct
>> evidence that rocks do deform / flow under heat and
>> pressure by the way pebbles; fossils, e.g. belemonites,
>> crinoids, trilobites, brachiopods, etc.; trace fossils;
>> oolites; reductions spots in slates; vesicles and
>> amygdules in lavas; and cross-beds have been deformed
>> along with the beds containing them.
>
>[snip a lot of great stuff that I wish I had time to study]
>
>Somebody bear with me and tell me if I seem to be missing this specific
>point. This sentence or two from Littleton (and another one somewhere in
>his post) makes me think there are some things - in part, fossils, I
>gather - found in the bent layers that themselves are bent, and that if the
>layers were soft when bent, these fossils would not likely be bent also.
>
>First, does it sound like I understand the point, at least on a simplistic
>level?
>
>Second, forgive my ignorance, but do the particular critters found "bent" in
>these layers tend to be A) hard-shelled, B) soft-shelled, or C) no-shelled -
>or are they just D) a mixture of all types?

Could be anything really.

Just to add something from my own experiences. I once did a few months of field
work in area in which fossil ammonites were fairly common. When the bedding
plane was exposed you could see them laying flat. Now, nominally, they have
fairly circular cross sections. But these were deformed into elongate elipses,
sometimes the major axis was as much as 5 to 6 times longer than the minor
axis. THis is moderate strain compared to some really deformed rocks.

For field work, it doesn't get any better than that. Nothing like nature
supplying you with a built in strain ellipse.

As for bent pebbles.. sure, bent rocks, deformed crystals.. etc..

You can look under an optical microscope and see cleavage planes in crstals
bent into sigmoidal shapes by tectonic deformation.

[Boikat]

"sds" <s...@mp3.com> wrote in message

news:an0e8f$6p$1...@slb0.atl.mindspring.net...

>
> "Boikat" <boi...@bellsloth.net> wrote in message
> news:FgIk9.21027$Ov6.2...@e3500-atl1.usenetserver.com...
> >
> > "Sean Pitman M.D." <Sean...@juno.com> wrote in message
> > news:fd67d42a.02092...@posting.google.com...
>
> [snip]
>
> > > There are even some fossils of fish
> > > in the middle of eating other fish.
> >
> > Yes, there is a rather famous fossil from Kansas, where a large fish
died
> > while trying to eat a big fish. The large fish died because the big
fish
> > blocked water from passing over the gills.
>
> "Thousands of such fossils have been found", according to a source of
mine -
> a source which I won't divulge even if my treasured $25 hard-copy of "In
the
> Beginning" depended on it!
>
> btw, is there any way to determine if these fish having lunch *were*
covered
> "rapidly" or not? Seems, given nothing more to go on but the nature of
the
> fossil, rapid burial is a logical speculation. But I'll be the first to
> admit that I don't know what other evidence there may be in the vicinity
> which could indicate relatively slow burial.

The specimen was found in the chalk beds. Chalk is usualy slowly deposited.

>
> So, yes, this is yet another question. Do we know one way or the other
> about the rapidity of burial for fossils of this particular type?
>
> Also, in the photo I've seen of this (I don't know if it's the one from
> Kansas you mentioned) the fish's dinner doesn't look particularly large -
> not large enough to cause any real problems like those you mentioned. But
I
> don't know the limitations involved here, so I can't argue that your
> explanation for the fish's death is not valid.

IIRC, that was the reason given, however, it's possible tht the fish being
eaten was just too big to pass into the stomach, and the larger fish simply
starved. OTOH, since both were fairly intact, I would think that death was
fairly quick.

Boikat
>
>

[Ferrous Patella]

news:amvplj$gs8$1...@venus.btinternet.com by "Glenn Morton"
<glenn....@btinternet.com>:

^^^^^^^^^^^^^

> rejected it.
>
>

"Fortunately", I'd say. Most other creationists would not have been as
open to recognizing the flaws in the model.

--
Ferrous Patella

"I love the wry motto of the Paleontological Society
(meant both literally and figuratively, for hammers are the main tool
of our trade): Frango ut patefaciam - I break in order to reveal."

Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002)

[Keith Littleton]

In Message-ID: <an08tj$ogf$1...@slb7.atl.mindspring.net>

"sds" <s...@mp3.com> wrote:
>"Keith Littleton" <litt...@katie.vnet.net> wrote in message
>news:GSKk9.303373$z91.13...@bin3.nnrp.aus1.giganews.com...
>> In Message-ID: <fd67d42a.02092...@posting.google.com>
>> Sean...@juno.com (Sean Pitman M.D.) wrote:
>>>Stuart
>
>[snip a little bit of great stuff]
>
>>A person can see direct
>>evidence that rocks do deform / flow under heat and
>>pressure by the way pebbles; fossils, e.g. belemonites,
>>crinoids, trilobites, brachiopods, etc.; trace fossils;
>>oolites; reductions spots in slates; vesicles and
>>amygdules in lavas; and cross-beds have been deformed
>>along with the beds containing them.
>
>[snip a lot of great stuff that I wish I had time
>to study]
>
>Somebody bear with me and tell me if I seem to be
>missing this specific point. This sentence or two
>from Littleton (and another one somewhere in his
>post) makes me think there are some things - in
>part, fossils, I gather - found in the bent layers
>that themselves are bent, and that if the layers
>were soft when bent, these fossils would not likely
>be bent also.

=
Well, I was trying to do too much in one post. Thus, I
did not explain all that I should have explained. What I
was trying to say is sedimentary rocks contain particles
such as pebbles; the fossils of the hard parts of animals
(such as shells and bones); and round oolites that have
well defined and known shapes. If they are present in
soft sediments and the sediments are deformed while still
soft, these particles are hard enough to resist being
deformed. The sediment containing them might be folded,
but objects like shells, bones, oolites, and pebbles will
not be deformed. Thus, if they are deformed, it means
that the deformation occurred after the sediments had
become lithified.

There is a discussion of how fossils can be used as
strain indicators at:
http://www.geosc.psu.edu/~engelder/geosc465/lect08.rtf

and

http://www.science.mcmaster.ca/geo/faculty/boyce/3z03/3z03_lec8.pdf
-

>First, does it sound like I understand the point,
>at least on a simplistic level?

-
Yes
-

>Second, forgive my ignorance, but do the particular
>critters found "bent" in these layers tend to be
>A) hard-shelled, B) soft-shelled, or C) no-shelled -
>or are they just D) a mixture of all types?

-
For definite proof of deformation while the sediment
was solid rock, hard parts of animals, bones and
shells, would be the best evidence.
-

>Do we find these bent fossils in a particular layer
>A) most places, B) many places, C) few places, or D)
>only rarely?

-
They would be found any places that fossiliferous
sedimentary rocks had been deformed but not
completely metamorphosed to the point that the
fossils are destroyed.

Some references are:

Beach, A. (1979) The analysis of deformed belemnites.
Journal of Structural Geology. vol. 1, no. 2,
pp. 127-135.

Bruton, D. L., and D. A. T. Harper (1992) Fossils in
fold belts. Terra Nova. vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 179-183.

Cooper, R. A. (1990) Interpretation of tectonically
deformed fossils. New Zealand Journal of Geology and
Geophysics. vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 321-332.

Diestler, K. A. (1997) Deformed trilobites and strain
features from the Metaline Formation, Pend Oreille
County, Washington. Unpublished Master's thesis,
Washington State University. Pullman, WA.

Engelder, T., and R. Engelder (1977) Fossil distortion
and decollement tectonics of the Appalachian Plateau.
Geology. vol. 5, no. 8, pp. 457-460

Engelder, T. and P. Geiser (1979) The relationship
between pencil cleavage and lateral shortening within
the Devonian section of the Appalachian Plateau, New
York. Geology. vol. 7, no. 9, pp. 460-464.

Hobbs, B. H. and J. L. Talbot (1968) The analysis of
strain in deformed rocks; a reply. Journal of Geology.
vol. 76, no. 4, p. 494.

Motani, R. W. (1997) New technique for retrodeforming
tectonically deformed fossils, with an example for
ichthyosaurian specimens. Lethaia. vol. 30, no. 3,
pp. 221-228.

Sdzuy, K. (1966) An improved method of analysing
distortion in fossils. Palaeontology. vol. 9, Part 1,
pp. 125-134.

Wellman, H. W. (1962) A graphical method for analysing
fossil distortion caused by tectonic deformation.
Geological Magazine. vol. 99, no. 4, pp. 348-352.
-

>What about bent pebbles? Are they "obviously" bent?

-
The pebbles are too short relative to the radius of the
fold to actually be "bent". Rather they are noticeably
stretched. As a result, they are called "stretched
pebbles". Some pictures of stretched pebbles on-line at:

1. An example of pebbles stretched by solid state
deformation can be seen in:

http://seis.natsci.csulb.edu/bperry/metarock/METACONGLOMERATE.htm
http://seis.natsci.csulb.edu/bperry/metaconglhandsample2.JPG
http://seis.natsci.csulb.edu/bperry/metarock/metaconglStan1.jpg

2. "Stretched pebbles in the Raft River metamorphic core
complex, Idaho." at:
http://pangea.stanford.edu/structure/geo_picts/stretched_pebbles.html
http://pangea.stanford.edu/structure/geology_pictures.html

3. stretched pebbles
http://www.unlv.edu/Colleges/Sciences/Geoscience/courses/
Field_Camp_picts/Stretchedpebble.jpg

(This URL needs to be reassembled to work)

4. "GEO3Z03 STRUCTURAL GEOLOGY" This PDF
file has pictures of stretched pebbles at:
http://www.science.mcmaster.ca/geo/faculty/boyce/3z03/3z03_lec8.pdf

and

5. "Stretched pebble Conglomerate in the South Park
Member of the Kingston Peak Formation, Precambrian in
age." at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~rhaughy/FPGDV.JPG
http://home.earthlink.net/~rhaughy/ROCKS.HTM

If the sediments in which these pebbles were encased were
unlithified ("soft") at the time the folds were created,
then it would have been impossible for the folding of the
strata to have stretched the pebbles.
-

>Do we find definitely-bent pebbles A) most places,
>B) many places, C) few places, or D) rarely?

-
Deformed pebbles are quite common in any tectonically
deformed sedimentary sequence that contains
conglomerates. They can be far more common than deformed
fossils, where the conglomerates are present, because it
is far easier for metamorphism to obliterate fossils in a
sedimentary rock than pebbles. The deformed pebbles can
be recognized even when the development of cleavage has
obliterated the originally bedding planes.

Some documented examples of deformed pebbles:

Borradaile, G. J., and D. Tarling (1984) Strain
partitioning and magnetic fabrics in particulate flow.
Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. vol. 21, no. 6,
pp. 694-697.

Burns, K. L., and A. H. Spry (1969) Analysis of the
shape of deformed pebbles. Tectonophysics. vol. 7,
no. 3, pp. 177-196

Chatterjee, S. R., and D. K. Sen Gupta (1984) Deformed
pebbles from Jamua and Kariapathar, Bhagalpur District,
Bihar, India. Modern Geology. vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 227-234.

Gay, N. C. (1968) Pure shear and simple shear
deformation of inhomogeneous viscous fluids; 2, The
determination of the total finite strain in a rock
from objects such as deformed pebbles. Tectonophysics.
vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 295-302.

Gay, N. C. (1970) The analysis of strain in the Barberton
mountain land, eastern Transvaal, using deformed pebbles.
Journal of Geology. vol. 77, no. 4, pp. 377-396.

Jerzykiewicz, T. (1985) Tectonically deformed pebbles in
the Brazeau and Paskapoo formations, central Alberta
Foothills, Canada. Sedimentary Geology. vol. 42, no. 3-4,
pp. 159-180.

Kumar, R., T. Okudaira, and M. Yoshida (2000)
Neoproterozoic deformation at a boundary zone between
the Nellore-Khammam schist belt and Pakhal Basin, SE
India; strain analysis of deformed pebbles. Gondwana
Research. vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 349-359.

Lin, C. W., and M. L. Huang (1997) The fractures and
paleostress of deformed pebbles in the conglomerates of
the Toukoshan Formation, Chiayi-Yunlin area. Journal of
the Geological Society of China. vol. 40, no. 1,
pp. 281-297.

Moritz, A., Jr. and A. P. Fiori (1987) Analise de seixos
deformados da Formacao Camarinha {Analysis of deformed
pebbles in the Camarinha Formation.] In Atas do III
simposio sul-Brasileiro de geologia [Proceedings of the
third symposium on the geology of southern Brazil], S. M.
Lessa, pp. 107-121. Sociedade Brasileira de Geologia,
Nucleos Parana, Santa Catarina e Rio Grande do Sul.
Curitiba, Brazil.

Srivastava, H. B., and V. K. Gairola (1986) Strain
analysis in the basal unit of Delhi Supergroup in
Kishangarh area (Rajasthan) as deduced from deformed
pebbles. Journal of the Geological Society of India.
vol. 27, no. 5, pp. 440-449.

Xu, X., T. Ma, L. Sun, and G. Li (1996) Characteristics
and formation mechanism of superplastic stretched pebbles
in the Huangshan ductile compression zone in the Hami
area, Xingjiang. Diqiu Xuebao [Acta Geoscientia Sinica]
vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 276-281.

Finally below is another picture of a fractured fold:

http://www.iun.edu/~geos/dvfold.jpg
http://www.iun.edu/~geos/fieldtr.htm

As noted in a previous post, people can read more about
ductile deformation in "Lithospheric Deformation" at:
http://www.seismo.unr.edu/ftp/pub/louie/class/plate/deformation.html

and "STRUCTURAL GEOLOGY Lectures 35-36 Models for Ductile
Failure" at:
http://www.geosc.psu.edu/~engelder/geosc465/lect35.rtf

Another discussion of ductile flow can be found in "UNB
GEOLOGY 1001 Lecture 12 - Deformation and Structures" at:
http://www.unb.ca/courses/geol1001a/lec-12.htm

For some very simple experiments that illustrate what
ductile deformation is, a person can go read "BRITTLE
VS. DUCTILE ROCK DEFORMATION" by Marcia Bjornerud at:
http://www.beloit.edu/~SEPM/Earth_Works/Brittle_vs_Ductile.html

Have Fun

Keith Littleton
New Orleans, LA

P.S. The below article might be of interest to people,
specifically Glenn

"Revisiting the Grand Canyon - Through the Eyes of
Seismic Sequence Stratigraphy By WARD ABBOTT*
Search and Discovery Article # 40018 (2001)

Adapted for online presentation from articles by same
author, entitled "A New View of Something Grand" and
"Canyon Offers Grand Seismic View" in Geophysical
Corner, AAPG Explorer, July, 1998, and August, 1998,
respectively. Appreciation is expressed to the author
and to M. Ray Thomasson, former Chairman of the AAPG
Geophysical Integration Committee, and Larry Nation,
AAPG Communications Director, for their support of
this online version."

http://www.searchanddiscovery.com/documents/
geophysical/Abbott/index.htm

http://www.searchanddiscovery.com/documents/
geophysical/Abbott/images/abbott01.pdf

(The Above URLs need to be reassembled to work)

http://www.searchanddiscovery.com/documents/geophysical/Abbott/index.htm

http://www.searchanddiscovery.com/documents/geophysical/Abbott/images/abbott01.pdf

[June]

Keith Littleton <litt...@katie.vnet.net> wrote:

[snip]

> >
> >[snip a little bit of great stuff]
> >

[snip great info]

>
> Finally below is another picture of a fractured fold:
>
> http://www.iun.edu/~geos/dvfold.jpg
> http://www.iun.edu/~geos/fieldtr.htm
>
> As noted in a previous post, people can read more about
> ductile deformation in "Lithospheric Deformation" at:
> http://www.seismo.unr.edu/ftp/pub/louie/class/plate/deformation.html
>
> and "STRUCTURAL GEOLOGY Lectures 35-36 Models for Ductile
> Failure" at:
> http://www.geosc.psu.edu/~engelder/geosc465/lect35.rtf
>
> Another discussion of ductile flow can be found in "UNB
> GEOLOGY 1001 Lecture 12 - Deformation and Structures" at:
> http://www.unb.ca/courses/geol1001a/lec-12.htm
>
> For some very simple experiments that illustrate what
> ductile deformation is, a person can go read "BRITTLE
> VS. DUCTILE ROCK DEFORMATION" by Marcia Bjornerud at:
> http://www.beloit.edu/~SEPM/Earth_Works/Brittle_vs_Ductile.html

Here's another site with very simple (for schoolkids) visual example(s)
and text of folding/faulting. (Beware of wrapped line!)

http://www.schoolscience.co.uk/content/4/chemistry/findoils/findoilch3pg
1.html

BTW, thank you for all the great links, references and discussion.

>
> Have Fun
>
> Keith Littleton
> New Orleans, LA
>

[snip excellent links]

--
My 2¢ B-}
June

[Noelie S. Alito]

"Stanley Friesen" <sar...@friesen.net> wrote in message
news:98g7pugb3aqtq8s4p...@4ax.com...

> Sean...@juno.com (Sean Pitman M.D.) wrote:

<chop>

> >Interesting argument I think. Fossilization requires rapid burial or
> >else decay will obliterate all traces. It seems to me that
> >fossilization is catastrophe dependent.
>
> In the local, everyday sense of the word, sort of. "Rapid" burial can
> still be gradual, as long as it is more rapid than decomposition.
> Decomposition can be relatively slow in some habitats.

Anoxic lake bottoms are a prime example. The result is that you
can have a fossil which largely preserves its 3-D shape as it
is gradually covered with settling mud, eventually forming a
fine shale with slightly smooshed--er, that's a very technical
term in paleontology--fossilized animal remains that retain a
great deal of fine detail (if not buried *too* deep). The fossils
in the Messel (Germany) fossil pit preserved stomach contents,
fetus-bones-in-mother-mammal and baby bat teeth on a mama
bat.

> > From my understanding,
> >practically all fossils of fish show evidence of catastrophic
> >burial... en masse.
>
> Not all, just some. Now the best fossil sites *are* local catastrophes,
> by and large. But this is true for most non-plankton fossils. Still,
> more fossil sites are just normal single burials than are mass burials.

I would say that is true for *terrestrial* fossils, since fossils of
near-shore marine organisms are found by the kiloton. (The UT
geology building, for example, is clad in quarried "fossil stone",
which is also commonly found in stone walls and sculptures all
around the greater Austin area--and that's just macro-organisms.)

Still, "local" catastrophes happen all of the time. Flash floods on
rivers from quick seasonal snowmelt leave animal carcasses piled
up in spots downstream all the time, though I would guess only a
small percentage get preserved buried in mudslides, say, and not
soon re-eroded by subsequent river activity. I remember aerial
footage after one of the worse monsoon seasons in India which
showed mile after mile of shoreline piled with carcasses of cattle
and other megafauna. Also, the frequent drought-fire-flood
combo is a good source of mudslides.

<http://www.fema.gov/library/diz02.shtm>

> [Numerically there may be more fossils from the few good sites, just
> because a few sets of a hundred specimens each naturally outnumber
> a hundred solitary specimens].
>
> >How then did the Coelacanth avoid such catastrophic burials when it
> >hadn't been able to avoid them for hundreds of millions of years?
>
> Habitat. Such burials only happen in certain environments

[Hmm.... Under what circumstances would we have fossils of
creatures that lived in deep-ocean habitats? Ocean floors scraped
off of subducting plates (aka "accreted pelagic terranes)? Dunno.]

Noelie
--
"To argue with a man who has renounced his reason is like
giving medicine to the dead." --Thomas Paine

[Keith Littleton]

Message-ID: <fd67d42a.02092...@posting.google.com>

Sean...@juno.com (Sean Pitman M.D.) wrote:

-

>Glenn Morton
>I got to thinking about your fossil fish argument.
>I even went to your web page where you discussed this
>argument in detail. Really, it is a very interesting
>argument. It seems quite reasonable. Like you said,
>I haven't heard it discussed much. Given this, I do
>have some questions or thoughts for you.
>

>I'm sure you know of the Coelacanth. The Coelacanth can
>be found in the geologic column as far back as "360
>million years" and as recently as "80 million years."

>Then, it disappears from the fossil record entirely.

>It was thought to have been completely wiped out with
>the dinosaurs, until 1938 when living Coelacanths were

>found alive and well off the east coast of S. Africa.

-
I know the "coelacanth". I know enough about them to know
that the coelacanths found in Madagascar are neither the
same type of coelacanth of fossils have been in rocks
that are 360 million years ago nor the same type of
coelacanth found in shallow marine strata that are about
80 million years old. The 360 million year old
coelacanths are smaller, lack certain internal structures
found in modern coelacanths and belong to a different
genera and suborder. The modern coelacanths belong to a
different genera than the 80 million year genera.
technically speaking, the modern coelacanth of the
genera Latimera, has no fossil record. Only the order
and suborder that it belongs to has.

If a person either goes to the nearest college library to
research this topic or requests books by interlibrary
loan, he / she can find:

Coelacanth" W. W. Norton & Company, New York and
London, 1991 ISBN 0-393-02956-5

On page 78, last paragraph of that book, he would have read:

"One point has to be emphasized; The living coelacanth
is not a living fossil in the very strict sense that
members of the species L. chaumnae itself have ever
been found as a fossil. In fact, no other species
assignable to the Genus Latimeria has been found as a
fossil either. Latimeria and the Cretaceous fossil
Genus Macropoma are quite closely related, and we
could possibly include them in the same family. Beyond
that, all fossil coelacanths belong to the order
Coelacanthini."
-

>Why then did they disappear from the fossil record after

>such a long presence there? Some argue that they used to

>live in environments "conducive" to fossilization, but
>now they live in caves and under the overhanging marine
>reefs of volcanic islands that are not so conducive to
>fossilization.

-
This might be quite true, but there is a lack of such
Tertiary, Mesozoic, or Paleozoic fossil bone beds that
occur within sediments, which have accumulated in the
caves and overhangs in reefs of volcanic islands. This
is because these deposits have either subsided with the
volcanic islands that they are associated with or have
been subducted with the volcanic islands beneath
continental plates. In the former case, the deposits
associated with still extent volcanic islands are now
underwater and buried beneath younger sediments that
have continue to accumulate on top the islands as they
sank. In the latter case, fragments of some volcanic
islands have been scraped off during subduction, but
for the most part, these fragments are badly mangled and
metamorphosed to the point of badly mangling, even
destroying any fossils that they might contain.

Similarly, the deep sea sediments that might contain the
fossils of coelacanths also have been largely subducted
with slices and slivers of these being sediments being
plastered against the continental margin just as mangled
and metamorphosed as the volcanic islands. The deep sea
sediments that are still undeformed lie at the ocean
bottom and buried under younger sediments where nobody
can get at them.
-
>Interesting argument I think.
-
It is interesting. I would be very interested in why Mr.
Pitman expects paleontologists to be able to find fossils
in sediments that are either underwater and buried
beneath younger sediments or consist of badly deformed
even metamorphosed sediments. If this argument is invalid,
Mr. Pitman should have absolutely no trouble at all
pointing specific outcrops of sedimentary strata where
a person could look for the remains of coelacanths.
-

>Fossilization requires rapid burial or else decay will
>obliterate all traces.

-
This is not completely true. Bones can survive for over
a year before being buried. In the case of shells, they
can be washed around for decades, even hundred of years,
before they are finally buried in the sediment to become
fossils. Only in of the fossilization of soft parts is
immediate burial required. This all has been documented
by direct field observation and other studies. Contrary
to what Mr. Pitman incorrectly claims, the hard part of
animals can persist for a significant period of time
before being finally buried. In fact, the degree to which
many fossil shells are either encrusted or have been
bored by other organisms and bones show signs of either
weathering or gnawing demonstrates that they were not
rapidly buried before being fossilized. Of course, a
bone or shell eventually has to be buried to be
preserved. Also, the sooner it is buried,
-

>It seems to me that fossilization is catastrophe
>dependent.

-
At this time, enough research has been done by geologists
and paleontologists where the proposal that fossilization
is catastrophe dependent can easily be demonstrated to be
completely refuted.

For example, in case of the preservation of bone,
catastrophes have nothing to do fossilization. Location
instead of catastrophe is an important part of whether
a bone becomes preserved. A person need only look at the
abundant fossil bones found in the Pleistocene to
Holocene age fluvial sediments that underlie Yellow House
Draw and many other stream and river valleys in the
Southern High Plains of Texas and New Mexico (Holiday
1997).

The bones of bison and other animals that fell on the
uplands of the Southern High Plains between river
valleys have decayed away. In these uplands, they either
lay exposed on the surface where weathering and
scavengers destroyed them.

However, where the bones of these bison and other animals
died upon the active floodplains of rivers and streams,
the bones of a number of them were eventually buried in
the sediments and some of these were indeed preserved. No
catastrophe was involved. Rather, the day to day, year to
year accumulation of sediments in lakes, in rivers, on
floodplains, and as dunes in these river valleys buried
and preserved these fossils. These fossils range in age
from bison contemporaneous with the colleagues of Buffalo
Bill to bison hunted by successive generations of Native
Americans back to Folsum and Clovis cultures and
mammoths, horses, and megafauna predating the Clovis
cultures. These bones consists of both natural bone beds
and kill sites. In the bottoms of Yellowhouse,
Blackwater, and other draws in the Southern High Plains
is an abundance showing that that the statement
"fossilization is catastrophe dependent" is
scientifically bankrupt. In these draws, fossils have
been constantly formed for the past 12,000 years without
any need for imaginary catastrophes. In case of
Yellowhouse Draw, the occasional deposition of fluvial,
lacustrine, and wind blown sediments along with very
calcareous soils is enough for fossils to have been
created over a long period of time (Holiday 1997).

References cited:

Holiday, V. T. (1997) Plaeoindian Geoarchaeology of the
Southern High Plains. University of Texas Press, Austin,
Texas.

Lubbock Lake Landmark State Historical Park
http://interoz.com/lubbock/landmark.htm
http://www.ttu.edu/%7Emuseum/lll/

The people lurking and reading this thread can find and
read papers that demonstrated fossilization can happen
under non-catastrophic conditions in:

Briggs, D. E. G. (1995): Experimental Taphonomy. Palaios.
vol. 10, pp. 539-550.

Briggs, D. E. K., and P. R. Crowther (1993) Paleobiology
A Synthesis. Oxford Blackwell Scientific Publciations,
New York.

Briggs D. E. G. And A. J. Kear (1993): Fossilization of
Soft Tissue in the Laboratory. Science vol. 259,
pp. 1439-1442

Briggs D. E .G., J. A. Keara. J., D. M. Martill, and P. R.
Wilby (1993): Phosphatization of soft-tissue in experiments
and fossils. Journal of Geological Society vol. 150,
pp. 1035-1038.

K. A. Dunn, K. A., and others (1997) Enhancement of Leaf
Fossilization Potential by Bacterial Biofilms. Geology.
vol. 25, no. 12, pp. 119-1222.

Seilacher, A., W.-E. Reif, F. Westphal (1985) Sedimentological,
ecological and temporal patterns of fossil Lagerstatten.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.
vol. B311, pp. 5-24.

Weeks, L. G. (1953) Environment and Mode of Origin and
Facies Relationships of Carbonate Concretions in Shales
Journal of Sedimentary Petrology. vol. 23, no. 3,
pp. 162-173.

Wilby, P. R., and others (1996) Role of Microbial Mats
in the Fossilization of Soft Tissues," Geology.
vol. 24, pp. 787-790.
-

>From my understanding, practically all fossils of fish

>show evidence of catastrophic burial... en masse. In

>other words, the fish were alive and well when they were
>suddenly buried alive.

-
If Mr. Pitman would research the fossilziation of fish,
he would find the statement "practically all fossils of
fish show evidence of catastrophic burial" to be a rather
gross exaggeration of what the facts show. For example,
the research by Maisey (1991) of the origins of the
Santana fossil fish clearly demonstrates the lack of
catastophe in their formation. Rather, they represent
fish that died and sank to the bottom of a large anoxic
lake over a period of thousands of years. The decay of
the fish on the bottom precipitated carbonate minerals
that preserved them as fossils. In case of the fossil
fish found in the Old Red Sandstone of Scotland, studies
by Trewin and Davidson (1995) demonstrated that these
fossils are the result of some mythical catastrophe.
Instead, the fish died when the lake they lived in dried
up and as the fish decayed in muddy bottom of the lake,
carbonate mineral precipitated around them and preserved
them as fossils. Finally, there are cases of massive fish
kills resulting in the accumulation of entire schools of
fish at the bottom of a lake where they were eventually
buried. However, as documented by Weigelt (1989) way back
in 1927, fish kills occur without the need for any
catastrophe.

Having sailed and fished the bays, bayous, and rivers
of Louisiana, I can personally vouch that natural fish
kills involving entire shoals of fish are quite common
in nature. In them, the fish die in a state of agony
without the need of a catastrophe. This observation is
documented in numerous published papers. As Weigelt
(1989, page 163) observes:

"Reports of enormous fish kills are plentiful: Almost
every ten years, a red mite appears in Walvis Bay,
South Africa and causes a fish kill of such magnitude
that the water is said to be completely covered with
dead fish.

Poisoning by minerals and gases have likewise often
been observed. Another example is the massive die-
off of fish during the iron "bloom" in Siberian rivers,
which Baron von Toll has reported in detail. In west
Texas and in many other areas, when the water level in
the rivers is low, there is a bloom of algae, and vast
numbers of fish die from carbon dioxide poisoning.
Changes in salinity very frequently cause fish to die.
Freyberg (55) observed in Mar Chiquita, Argentina (a
basin of concentrated salt solution into which,
however, a completely isolated source of fresh water
emptied) large accumulations of fish that had died
and been preserved by the salt solution and had then
floated ashore, where they were mummified. Freshwater
fish in coastal lakes die off when there is an ingress
of salt water. The most well-known instance occurred
when the narrow neck of land that separated the
Limfjord from the ocean to the west broke in 1825.
After a storm tide, salt water entered and killed all
the freshwater fish, which floated ashore in
unbelievable numbers; some were even buried along with
eelgrass beneath the sand carried ashore by the
storm tide."

Weigelt (1989, page 164) also observed:

"Andree (9) reports on the natural mass death of the
fish Mallotus villosus Muller, which occurs annually
after the breeding season and which, ac cording to A.
Jort, regularly coincides with radical temperature
changes in the Barents Sea. The floors of calm bays
and inlets of the harbors at Disko and Lodden,
Greenland, can be completely covered with fish
carcasses. Remains of Mallotus villosus form the growth
centers of concretions known as 'marlekor' found in the
late glacial, polar sea clays in Greenland and Norway."

If a person looks at the taphonomy and sedimentology of
the fossil fish beds in detail, the evidence for them
having been formed catastrophically either turns out to
be wishful thinking or not credible evidence at all of
any catastrophe having created them.

References cited:

Maisey, John G. (1991) Fossil forensics. In J. G.
Maisey, ed., Santana fossils; an illustrated atlas.
T.F.H. Publ.. Neptune City, New Jersey.

Trewin, N. H., and Davidson, R. G. (1995) An Early
Devonian lake and its associated biota in the Midland
Valley of Scotland. Transactions of the Royal Society
of Edinburgh: Earth Sciences. vol. 86, Part 4,
pp. 233-246.

Weigelt J. (1989) Recent Vertebrate Carcasses and their
Paleobiological implications. University of Chicago Press.
Chicago, Illinois.
-

>There are even some fossils of fish in the middle of
>eating other fish.

There two problems here. First, these fossils are very
extremely rare. So rare, that they are only indicative of
very rare events. Finally, these fossils only demonstrate
how some Young Earth creationists are incapable of
recognizing a fish that choked on trying to eat a fish
far larger than it could swallow.
-

>Also, many of them show statistically significant
>alignment with each other. In other words, they are

>generally found in the same plane of orientation such

>as would be expected from a current deposit.

-
Bottom currents are not unique to catastrophes. There
are currents at the bottom of lakes, streams, and so
forth. Just a regular flood will create such
orientations. Also, you greatly exaggerate the degree
that such fossil deposits show orientations. For
example, the Santana fossil deposits and the Old Red
Sandstone fossil fish don't show such orientations.
Many of the Miocene diatomite fossil fish don't show
such orientation. Basically, the presence of a current
is **not** evidence of a catastrophe and **not** all
fossil fish deposits even show the alignment and
orientation that indicated the presence of a current.
-

>The same orientation can be generally seen with other
>types of fossils such as plants, shells, dinosaurs, etc.

-
Some of the bone beds in the fluvial sediments underlying
Yellowhouse Draw near Lubbock, Texas in Southern High
Plains show the exact same type of orientation. It would
be foolish to argue that because these bones are
oriented, that they were deposited by a catastrophe.
They, like the oriented dinosaur bones and plants are
not oriented because of a catastrophe. Rather, they just
were by the currents of either the river or flood that
moved them around and preserved them by dumping sediments
on them.
-

>How then did the Coelacanth avoid such catastrophic
>burials when it hadn't been able to avoid them for
>hundreds of millions of years?

-
There weren't any catastrophic burials. The problem is
that very little of the rock, in which the fossils of
coelacanth would occur, is available for people to find
their fossils in. Also, with a relatively small numbers
of coelacanths, their fossils would be very hard to find
even if large amounts of these rocks were available for
inspection.
-

>With these thoughts in mind, let me pose a hypothetical
>for you to shoot down (That's the whole point of
>hypothetical questions you know... to be shot down. That
>is the goal of the scientific method. Once a person stops
>trying to shoot down hypothesis and theories of
>science, science is not longer science.).
>
>What if the fish found in the lower layers of the geologic
>column were "sorted" according to various factors such as
>environmental habitat and body composition (to include
>size, shape, and density)?

-
....stuff about hydraulic sorting omitted...

What I would like to know is how hydraulic sorting can
distribute intact fossil reefs throughout the entire
geological column. How does hydraulic sorting explain
the biostratigraphy of microfossils?

What I would like Young Earth creationists to explain is
why microfossils which lived in the same ocean are so
nicely stratified according to age. First go read
"Microfossil Stratigraphy Presents Problems for the
Flood" by Glenn R. Morton at:

http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/micro.htm

He gives a few of innumerable examples where foraminifera
and other microsfossils are found in the same stratigraphic
sequence over large areas, even world-wide. A person cannot
explain this in terms of either location or habitat zonation.
Since they are essentially the same size and weight,
hydraulic sorting cannot be used as an explanation. The
only explanation is that the foraminifera are found neatly
zoned by depth is because they lived at different times as
the strata accumulated.

The Young Earth creationist global flood model cannot
account for vertical distribution of microsfossils as
illustrated in the "MMS GOMR Resource Evaluation
Paleontological Laboratory, Biostratigraphic Chart." with
a link at "Scientific and Technical Papers of the Gulf of
Mexico OCS Region" at:

http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/whatsnew/papers/papers.html

This chart can be downloaded from:

http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/whatsnew/papers/biochart.pdf
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/whatsnew/papers/biochart.cdr

This chart shows the vertical sequence in which all over
the entire northern Gulf of Mexico how over a 100 different
microfossils occur within a pile sediments over 15,000 to
20,000 feet thick. In oil well after oil well and in
surface exposure after surface exposure, the sequence of
microfossils shown in this chart can be found. For
example, Hyalina "B" is always found in the sediments
above the sediments containing Angulogerina "A." It, in
term, overlies sediments containing Cristellaria "S",
Globorotalia miocenica and Globorotalia menardii, and
Bolivina imporcata. These microfossils are found
above sediments containing Lenticulina 1, Cassidulina "L",
and Saracenaria "H". In addition, the geologic periods
also occur in the same order in oil well after oil well
as well as in surface exposures. Hydraulic sorting cannot
explain this vertical distribtion of microfossils as Glenn
argues on his web page.

[Glenn Morton]

Ok, I give. I won't defend my views on the history of Darwin's supporting
evolution via geology.

Mike Dunford <mdun...@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9291C38AE8...@66.75.162.198...
> Some piggybacking.
>
> "Glenn Morton" <glenn....@btinternet.com> wrote in
> news:aml04q$qi1$1...@knossos.btinternet.com:
>
> > Matt Silberstein <mat...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
> > news:rftrou862m4u6q0mp...@4ax.com...
> >> In talk.origins I read this message from "Glenn Morton"
> >> >
> >> >No I don't know what you are talking about. You said that the
> >> >foundation of evolution is the geologic column. That isn't
> >> >true. The foundation of evolution was the observations of
> >> >morphological change observed by Darwin. He has very little
> >> >paleontology in his book and thus relied little on geology to
> >> >develop evolution.
>
> I don't think I agree with you about the role of geology in Darwin's
> theory. Geology and paleontology are discussed in _Origin_. In the
> 1st edition, chapter ten ("Geological Succession") is devoted
> entirely to a discussion of the support paleontology provides for
> Darwin's argument, while chapters nine ("Imperfection of the
> Geological Record") and eleven ("Geographical Distribution") also
> contain at least some discussion of paleontology. So I don't think
> that it's really accurate to say that there is "very little
> paleontology" in _Origin_, although it is true that it is not the
> primary focus of the argument.
>
> >> Actually, I think he is true. The discovery of the geological
> >> column and such was instrumental in overthrowing the notion of
> >> a young Earth. It was "foundational" in starting a revolution
> >> in thought, a revolution whose beginnings end with Darwin.
> >> Darwin needed the notion of an old Earth to even think about
> >> Common Descent. And he made us of the plain fact of evolution
> >> recorded in the column: the clear fact that life on Earth has
> >> changed considerably over time. The age and sequence of the
> >> column is a foundation of evolution.
>
> I think that it might make things a bit clearer if we distinguish
> 'common descent' from 'natural selection' here. One of the reasons
> that paleontology does not play more of a role in _Origin_ than it
> does is because, while it provides a great deal of the support for
> common descent (the fact of evolution), it is not nearly as important
> a part of natural selection (the theory of evolution). Since Darwin's
> primary focus in _OOS_ was on natural selection, it makes sense that
> he did not focus primarily on paleontology.
>
> > I agree that the geologic column, which shows tremendoous
> > morphological change in the fossils contained in those ancient
> > rocks is today a big support for evolution, the paleontologic
> > record was less well known in the 1840s when Darwin first began
> > toying with the idea of evolution.
>
> While the column was less well known in the 1840s and 1850s than it
> is today, the changes in life over time displayed in the fossil
> record had become clear enough that many (possibly most) of the
> leading paleontologists of the day were concerned with figuring out
> how species came into being -- the "species problem". The record
> might not have been as well known as it is today, but it was
> certainly known well enough that even die-hard opponents of Darwin
> such as Richard Owen were starting to lean towards some type of
> transmutation by the time Darwin published.
>
> > The fact that he didn't use
> > much from the geologic column, to me is important. I would agree
> > that the fact that the geologic column granted him lots of time
> > did influence the development of evolution. He couldn't have
> > been credible without vast spans of time.
>
> That is certainly true, and it was one of the reasons that he was
> highly disappointed by Huxley's willingness to accept Kelvin's
> limitations on the age of the earth.
>
> > All that to say, I partly agree with you but partly don't.
> > I may well be wrong, but it seems to me that he based most of his
> > work on his Beagle observations.
>
> Some of the most important of which were paleontological. In
> particular, his observations regarding the fossil fauna of South
> America and its resemblance to the current South American fauna
> played a key role.
>
> --Mike Dunford
> --
> It might not be much of a life in our terms, but it keeps several
> species of anglerfish going... And who can judge anyway? In some
> ultimate Freudian sense, what male could resist the fantasy of life
> as a penis with a heart...
> --Stephen Jay Gould
>

[Harlequin]

I nominate the following for Post-of-the-Month. Seconds?

Keith Littleton <litt...@katie.vnet.net> wrote in

news:visl9.348736$5r1.15...@bin5.nnrp.aus1.giganews.com:

--

[Mike Dunford]

Harlequin <use...@cox.net> wrote in
news:Xns92987D9ED9592u...@68.12.19.6:

> I nominate the following for Post-of-the-Month. Seconds?
>

[snip]

seconded.

--Mike Dunford
--
The best scientist is open to experience and begins with romance -
the idea that anything is possible.
--Ray Bradbury

[John Harshman]

In article <amt54p$pu6$1...@helle.btinternet.com>,
"Glenn Morton" <glenn....@btinternet.com> wrote:

> Sean Pitman M.D. <Sean...@juno.com> wrote in message

> news:fd67d42a.0209...@posting.google.com...
> > John Harshman
> >
> > > And who says turbidites don't level or erode? Most turbidites come in
> > > big series in which each successive turbidite is severely truncated by
> > > the one above it.
> >
> >
> > Actually, if you have ever seen a reproduction of a turbiditic flow in
> > action, they do not erode the layer or layers below to any significant
> > degree, if at all. Because of this, the lines between each turbiditic
> > flow are generally as crisp and sharp as a razor blade. Each
> > successive turbidite is NOT severely truncated by the one above it.
> > It might seem logical, but in reality, this is not what happens
>
> Flute marks and grooves at the sandstone base are a common feature of
> turbiditic layers. These are a form of erosion.

Dr. Sean might explain to me why it's rare for a turbidite to have a
clay or silt layer at its upper boundary. I reiterate: all the
turdibites I have seen are truncated. Can we reconcile Dr. Sean's
reproduction of a turbidity flow in action to the observation of
turbidite series in rock exposures?

--

*Note the obvious spam-defeating modification
to my address if you reply by email.

[Sean Pitman M.D.]

Keith Littleton,

Thanks for this post Keith. This is one of the best and most
interesting posts I have yet read in this particular series of posts.
Really fascinating stuff here.

So, the dramatic warping of solid rock seems fairly well supported...
even without the use of significant amounts of heat. It seems like,
under sufficient amounts of pressure, this warping might even be done
rapidly. Would you agree?

What about the formation of the rock itself, the cementing process,
how rapidly can this take place?

Thanks again for this post.

Sincerely,

Sean

[Sean Pitman M.D.]

Glenn Morton

Some more thoughts concerning my last follow-up.

www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/northseatime.htm

> I went to your web page detailing the North Sea conformity. As part of
> your intro you said, "Unconformities are evidence of erosion between
> two strata and would take much time if the rocks were hard while they
> were being eroded."

Let's suppose that the layers were cemented into solid rock by the
time of their erosion. Why is the erosion so horizontally even or
flat? Why didn't the erosion, if it took such a long time to occur,
erode more unevenly? What was the mechanism of such even erosion over
a long period of time? I mean, the hills are chopped off as cleanly
as if they had been removed by a leveling bulldozer. How does erosion
form such clean lines over long periods of time?

Sean

[Stanley Friesen]

Sean...@juno.com (Sean Pitman M.D.) wrote:

>So, the dramatic warping of solid rock seems fairly well supported...
>even without the use of significant amounts of heat. It seems like,
>under sufficient amounts of pressure, this warping might even be done
>rapidly. Would you agree?

It depends on what you mean by "rapidly". Rapidly in a *geological*
sense, certainly, say a few millennia or so.

>
>What about the formation of the rock itself, the cementing process,
>how rapidly can this take place?

It varies with rock type. Many sorts of limestone cement within months
to decades. On the other and I have seen 250 million year old rock turn
soft and slump in a rain storm - it were scarcely more consolidated than
dry mud (which is what it started out as, it being a mudstone layer in
the either Oread Limestone Formation or the Lawrence Shale Formation).

[Matt Silberstein]

In talk.origins I read this message from Sean...@juno.com (Sean
Pitman M.D.):

>Keith Littleton,
>
>Thanks for this post Keith. This is one of the best and most
>interesting posts I have yet read in this particular series of posts.
>Really fascinating stuff here.
>
>So, the dramatic warping of solid rock seems fairly well supported...
>even without the use of significant amounts of heat. It seems like,
>under sufficient amounts of pressure, this warping might even be done
>rapidly. Would you agree?

Obviously not and why in the world would you think that.
(Actually, I know the answer to that, you very much want it to be
so.) So, what happens when you hit a rock with a hammer, does it
fracture or deform? Have you actually forgotten about fracturing?

>What about the formation of the rock itself, the cementing process,
>how rapidly can this take place?

--

Matt Silberstein

Observation favors the stable, the persistent

[Matt Silberstein]

In talk.origins I read this message from Sean...@juno.com (Sean
Pitman M.D.):

>Glenn Morton

The material we tend to see is not from the tops of hills. Stuff
on the top of hills gets washed down. The layers form *from* this
stuff. We tend to see the stuff that washed down and lies flat on
the plains.

[June]

You keep making assertions like "the hills are chopped off as cleanly
as if they had been removed by a leveling bulldozer" and asking
questions like, "Why is the erosion so horizontally even or
flat?" . What makes you think this is true of all strata interfaces?
Where did you get these ideas from?

FWIU, have read about and have seen, there is almost every type of
interface you can imagine between strata from smooth, interleaved
transitions with no break in deposition to buried islands and hills to
buried, eroded canyons to great, angular unconformities (which are
evidence of massive erosion occuring over great lengths of time) to huge
tracts and blocks of sedimentary rock layers that has been uplifted and
fractured, compressed, folded, spindled and mutilated. I can find
references for all of these. I can take you out and _show_ you many of
these horizons within a few hundred miles of my home in Southern
California.

Where's _your_ data?

You _do_ realize that it only takes a few examples showing eroded and
refilled canyons, tilted & eroded blocks of sedimentary rock, petrified
layers of tree stumps stacked on top of each other WITH their roots
intact in the paleosoils, cooled and exposed igneous intrusions, etc.,
to disprove a young earth and a world-wide flood, don't you?

[Bigdakine]

>Subject: Re: Pitman's Pathetic Geology.

>From: Sean...@juno.com (Sean Pitman M.D.)
>Date: 9/30/02 4:00 PM Hawaiian Standard Time
>Message-id: <fd67d42a.0209...@posting.google.com>

Good grief Dr. Pittman.

Mountains are not where the sediment is deposited.

Mountains erode due to mechanical and chemical weathering. THose weathering
products are carried by wind or water to areas where sediment is deposited.
Such as shores, deltas, continental shelves and abyssal plains. And while not
perfectly horizontal, they are horizontal enough so that looking at your
typical outcrop they appear pretty flat.

I mean, what are you proposing? Mountains sort of disintegrate in place leaving
huge piles of unconsolidated sediment in situ for future lithification?

You wish to see what eroded mountains look like? Take a trip to the North East
and have a look at the Appalachians.

You won't find great gobs of fresh sediment in them, aside from Quaternary
till. No, you'll find glacial lakes, and U-shaped valleys where glacials carved
the Apps, and transported hugh amounts of sediment dumping it southward. Long
Island is a terminal morraine, marking the furthest southward advance of the
last ice age (in the NE US.).

You miss the point. Sediment is carried away from mountains, not to them.

[Sean Pitman M.D.]

bigd...@aol.comGetaGrip (Bigdakine) wrote in message news:<20021001015247...@mb-ch.aol.com>...

Dr. Stuart Weinstein,

You miss my whole point. I didn't say that sediment was being carried
toward the "hills" in Glenn Morton's seismic diagram. I am just
saying that the hills that were obviously eroded away, were eroded in
a perfectly flat or horizontal way. How is this done over long
periods of time? Check out the link and you will see that these hills
were leveled flat by whatever eroded them. They were not leveled
unevenly as I might expect.

Sean

[Sean Pitman M.D.]

Matt Silberstein <mat...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message news:<ln5ipuo734ah9sk90...@4ax.com>...

Matt,

You miss the point. I'm not talking about the material that we see,
but the material that we are not seeing. I am talking about the hills
themselves that were obviously weathered away. How were they
weathered in such a perfectly flat or horizonatal manner? Do you
understand this question? Look at the link provided by Glenn Morton.
Then notice that the hills in his seismic diagram are weathered away
till they are perfectly flat and horizontally even. How does such
perfect weathering happen over long periods of time?

Sean

[Sean Pitman M.D.]

jun...@adelphia.net (June) wrote in message news:<1fjcfhf.180izftwsjgt6N%jun...@adelphia.net>...

> Sean Pitman M.D. <Sean...@juno.com> wrote:
>
> > Glenn Morton
> >
> > Some more thoughts concerning my last follow-up.
> >
> > www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/northseatime.htm
> >
> > > I went to your web page detailing the North Sea conformity. As part of
> > > your intro you said, "Unconformities are evidence of erosion between
> > > two strata and would take much time if the rocks were hard while they
> > > were being eroded."
> >
> > Let's suppose that the layers were cemented into solid rock by the
> > time of their erosion. Why is the erosion so horizontally even or
> > flat? Why didn't the erosion, if it took such a long time to occur,
> > erode more unevenly? What was the mechanism of such even erosion over
> > a long period of time? I mean, the hills are chopped off as cleanly
> > as if they had been removed by a leveling bulldozer. How does erosion
> > form such clean lines over long periods of time?
> >
> >
> > Sean
>
> You keep making assertions like "the hills are chopped off as cleanly
> as if they had been removed by a leveling bulldozer" and asking
> questions like, "Why is the erosion so horizontally even or
> flat?" . What makes you think this is true of all strata interfaces?
> Where did you get these ideas from?

So at least you understand what I am talking about in this example.
That's a start at least. Also, I never said it is true of all strata
interfaces. However, it seems to be generally true... the rule and
not the exception.

> FWIU, have read about and have seen, there is almost every type of
> interface you can imagine between strata from smooth, interleaved
> transitions with no break in deposition to buried islands and hills to
> buried, eroded canyons to great, angular unconformities (which are
> evidence of massive erosion occuring over great lengths of time) to huge
> tracts and blocks of sedimentary rock layers that has been uplifted and
> fractured, compressed, folded, spindled and mutilated. I can find
> references for all of these. I can take you out and _show_ you many of
> these horizons within a few hundred miles of my home in Southern
> California.

Exactly. I agree. However, the general rule is flatness and crisp
contact zones. I am continuing to study this topic further as it is
not my area of expertise, but as of yet, I am not convinced that
angular unconfomities or the erosion of canyons or river channels need
vast amounts of time as you suggest. It seems to me that such events
can happen very rapidly. Consider also the layers around this river
channels and canyons. They do not show general erosion between their
contact zones. For example, the Colorado River is supposed to have
eroded away the Grand Canyon in less than 10 million years. However,
the uppermost layers of the Arizona landscape around the Grand Canyon
remain without evidence of 10 million years of weathering. 10 million
years of weathering should have eroded around 500m of sediment from
the surrounding Arizona landscape. Why is this sediment still
relatively untouched?

> Where's _your_ data?

Exactly what data do you want?

> You _do_ realize that it only takes a few examples showing eroded and
> refilled canyons, tilted & eroded blocks of sedimentary rock, petrified
> layers of tree stumps stacked on top of each other WITH their roots
> intact in the paleosoils, cooled and exposed igneous intrusions, etc.,
> to disprove a young earth and a world-wide flood, don't you?

I disagree. The few examples that are present could represent very
rapid erosive processes from rapid water runnoff and huge seismic
activities. The petrified layers of trees that you speak of, such as
are found at Yellowstone National Park, do not show what you say they
show. Their "roots" are broken off so that the roots that remain are
very short. Their branches are likewise missing as well as much of
their bark. Also, tree ring analysis has shown that they lived at the
same time. Also, the "soil" is water sorted.

I will have to look more closely into your other examples, but so far,
it seems to me that you have not proven your point.

Thanks again for your time and the presentation of your ideas. They
have certainly been quite helpful to me.

Sincerely,

Sean

[John Harshman]

In article <fd67d42a.02100...@posting.google.com>,

Sean...@juno.com (Sean Pitman M.D.) wrote:

Just two days ago, I flew from New Orleans to Chicago to California.
It's amazing how the view from 30k feet can show geological processes.
Over the lower Mississippi, craggy bluffs had been eroded (in
beautifully scalloped fossil meanders) to create a wide, perfectly flat
floodplain. Over the Great Basin, there were huge areas with remnant
buttes and hills surrounded by wide, extremely flat bajadas and playas.
Take a trip by air, Sean. Get out a little.

As for your questions about why the areas surrounding the Grand Canyon
aren't eroded, take a look at a geological transect some time. Of course
they are eroded. All Mesozoic and later sediments are missing from the
canyon area. As you move both north and south, those sediments gradually
appear, in order. The trip north is especially fun as you gradually see
new, younger formations appear in a series of variously colored scarps
-- the Vermillion Cliffs (Triassic), White Cliffs (Jurassic), Gray
Cliffs (Cretaceous), and Pink Cliffs (Cenozoic). Why, it's as if the
land around the canyon had been gradually uplifted, causing the older
layers to be stripped off in the center, with gradually less erosion as
we get farther from middle of the uplift area.

Why perfect weathering? First, it's perfect only on some scales. There
are all sorts of imperfections on very small and medium scales, with
flatness at small and large scales. Second, physics. Erosion is fastest
on the highest spots, because of both gravity and exposure. That tends
to even things out. It also helps if there are strata of varying
hardness -- all the overlying strata will tend to wear away before the
caprock starts.

[Matt Silberstein]

What in our observations suggests to you that they were?

> Do you
>understand this question?

Yes, but I can't see why you ask it.

> Look at the link provided by Glenn Morton.
>Then notice that the hills in his seismic diagram are weathered away
>till they are perfectly flat and horizontally even. How does such
>perfect weathering happen over long periods of time?

Again, because what we usually see is not the weathered hills,
but the flat deposits from those his. And sometimes we do see
other shapes. You are asking why something happens that does not
happen nor does our observations suggest it does.

[John Stockwell]

>bigd...@aol.comGetaGrip (Bigdakine) wrote in message news:<20021001015247...@mb-ch.aol.com>...
>> >Subject: Re: Pitman's Pathetic Geology.
>> >From: Sean...@juno.com (Sean Pitman M.D.)

Hello Sean,

>
>Dr. Stuart Weinstein,
>
>You miss my whole point. I didn't say that sediment was being carried
>toward the "hills" in Glenn Morton's seismic diagram. I am just
>saying that the hills that were obviously eroded away, were eroded in
>a perfectly flat or horizontal way. How is this done over long
>periods of time? Check out the link and you will see that these hills
>were leveled flat by whatever eroded them. They were not leveled
>unevenly as I might expect.

Basically erosion converts larger grains into smaller grains, which then
are carried to lower elevation. If there are basins, then those grains
wind up being deposited there. The general pattern is that hills are
reduced in height and depressions are filled up. Now, there are some
situations, such as in at least two sequences within the Grand Canyon
were some topography is preserved. This is never more than a few
tens or hundreds of feet. In these cases, we likely are talking about the
land between stream channels that are preserved, rather than actual 'hills'.

The problem that you have is that if you want to preserve large topography,
you have to have a process that causes the level of the land to drop
more rapidly than the rate of erosion, so that the environment becomes
one dominated by deposition rather than erosion.

>
>Sean
>

--
John Stockwell | jo...@dix.Mines.EDU
Center for Wave Phenomena (The Home of Seismic Un*x)
Colorado School of Mines
Golden, CO 80401 | http://www.cwp.mines.edu/cwpcodes
voice: (303) 273-3049

Our book:
Norman Bleistein, Jack K. Cohen, John W. Stockwell Jr., [2001],
Mathematics of multidimensional seismic imaging, migration, and inversion,
(Interdisciplinary Applied Mathematics, V. 13.), Springer-Verlag, New York.

[June]

Actually I'm not sure I _do_ understand what you mean. Whatever you mean
has great significance to you apparently; you keep bringing it up as
though it should have a profound impact on geological science. How much
is 'so horizonally even or flat'? What are "crisp contact zones"? HOw
flat is flat? Please quantify and/or give a reference to describe these
phenomena.

>
> > FWIU, have read about and have seen, there is almost every type of
> > interface you can imagine between strata from smooth, interleaved
> > transitions with no break in deposition to buried islands and hills to
> > buried, eroded canyons to great, angular unconformities (which are
> > evidence of massive erosion occuring over great lengths of time) to huge
> > tracts and blocks of sedimentary rock layers that has been uplifted and
> > fractured, compressed, folded, spindled and mutilated. I can find
> > references for all of these. I can take you out and _show_ you many of
> > these horizons within a few hundred miles of my home in Southern
> > California.
>
> Exactly. I agree. However, the general rule is flatness and crisp
> contact zones. I am continuing to study this topic further as it is
> not my area of expertise, but as of yet, I am not convinced that
> angular unconfomities or the erosion of canyons or river channels need
> vast amounts of time as you suggest. It seems to me that such events
> can happen very rapidly. Consider also the layers around this river
> channels and canyons. They do not show general erosion between their
> contact zones. For example, the Colorado River is supposed to have
> eroded away the Grand Canyon in less than 10 million years. However,
> the uppermost layers of the Arizona landscape around the Grand Canyon
> remain without evidence of 10 million years of weathering. 10 million
> years of weathering should have eroded around 500m of sediment from
> the surrounding Arizona landscape. Why is this sediment still
> relatively untouched?

Let me work from the bottom up wrt your response.

1) The sediment that once was on top of the North and South Rims of the
Grand Canyon has been eroded away. Where did you get the idea that it
was untouched? Have you ever heard of the Grand Staircase?

Here's a graphic of the Grand Staircase showing the layers that once
overlay the Grand Canyon area and have been eroded away. Those layers
still exist. The area around the GC has been uplifted more than the
areas to the north (Zion Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands,Capital Reef,
etc). All those thousands of feet of sediment once existed over the GC
sedimentary layers. (The vertical scale is exaggerated in the graphic,
but I can't find by how much. Just keep that in mind as you view it.)

http://www-geology.ucdavis.edu/~GEL25/GEL25lectures/GRNDCNYNSTRAT2.JPG

2) On the issue of not showing general erosion between contact layers,
let's look at the layers in the Grand Canyon.

Here's a graphic and discussion of the GC layers showing areas of
nonconformity. Specifically notice the Temple Butte and Surprise Canyon
formations. These are noticeable formations in the GC that are
deposited, at least partially, within erosional features on top of the
Muav Limestone and the Redwall Formation, respectively. These aren't
small areas with a couple of streams in them.
http://www.rockhounds.com/grand_hikes/geology/overview.shtml

Following is a discusion of the Muave Limestone and the layers
immediately under and overlying it. It doesn't look like "crisp contact
zones" or "so horizonal and flat" does it?

From:
http://my.erinet.com/~jwoolf/gc_rocks.html

"Next up is the Muav Limestone, a complex formation that consists of
mixed shales, siltstones, conglomerates, and carbonates. The Muav and
Bright Angel formations are complexly intertongued, meaning that the
Muav was deposited directly atop the Bright Angel with no period of
erosion in between. Fossil correlation supports this by showing the Muav
to be from about the same time period as the Bright Angel. Like the
Bright Angel Shale, the Muav Limestone is soft and easily eroded, so
it's rather difficult to find when you're looking at the canyon wall.
The intact layers of the Bright Angel and Muav formations tend to be
buried under a lot of loose rock and rubble.

Above the Muav Limestone, things get complicated. Depending on where you
look in the Grand Canyon, you can find any one of three different
formations overlying the Muav Limestone. In the western Canyon, around
Grand Wash, there is a thick mass of undifferentiated dolomite called
the Grand Wash Dolomite, which is tentatively dated to the Late
Cambrian. In the central Canyon, one finds a formation called the Temple
Butte Formation, which fossils show to be of Devonian age. Farther east,
the Temple Butte disappears and the Redwall Limestone, of Mississippian
age, lies directly atop the Muav.

The Temple Butte Limestone is a layer of dolomitic limestone that occurs
only in scattered outcrops in the eastern Grand Canyon, but becomes more
common as you move west. It becomes a continuous layer between the Muav
and Redwall formations somewhere around Grand Canyon Village, and
continues to thicken to a maximum of about 450 feet near the mouth of
the Canyon. In many places the Temple Butte fills channels cut deeply
into the underlying Muav Limestone. Fossils present in the Temple Butte
rocks show it to be from the Middle to Late Devonian. This means that
the Muav/Temple Butte contact marks a gigantic unconformity, and there
are no rocks of Ordovician, Silurian, or Early Devonian age in the Grand
Canyon."

This is just one example. There are many more. Your vision of the
interface between sedimentary layers is a gross simplification of the
actual rock interfaces. It appears to me that this 'cartoon' vision of
geologic processes leads you to some erroneous conclusions.

3) Angular unconformities. You don't think they take vast amounts of
time? Then explain the Grand Canyon Supergroup? (Beware the wrap below)

http://www.rockhounds.com/grand_hikes/geology/supergroup_formations.shtm
l

Nine layers, one being volcanic, layed down to a depth of 12,000 feet,
containing nonconformities within the group (periods of erosion in some
layers with other layers deposited on top of the erosional features).
Then the WHOLE 12,000 feet of rock over many square miles was broken up
into huge blocks, tilted at about 10º from horizontal, and the jagged
peaks of the blocks eroded back down to near horizontal. THEN thousands
of feet more of sediments have been deposited, eroded, deposited,
eroded, deposited, eroded on top of the Supergroup. After that a river
cut down through those thousands of feet of sediment to eventually
expose it again.

"The Grand Canyon Supergroup is divided into nine major rock formations.
The Bass Limestone, Hakatai Shale, Shinumo Quartzite, Dox Formation, and
Cardenas Lava together make up the Unkar Group. Above them is the
Nankoweap Formation. Above that is the Chuar Group, which includes the
Galeros and Kwagunt formations. At the top of the Supergroup is the
Sixtymile Formation, which occurs in only a few places. Five noticeable
unconformities occur in the Grand Canyon Supergroup: Hakatai/Shinumo,
Cardenas/Nankoweap, lower/upper Nankoweap, Nankoweap/Galeros, and
Kwagunt/Sixtymile.

The unconformity between the Cardenas and Nankoweap formations is
especially interesting because the lowermost Nankoweap includes chunks
of rock that clearly came from the Cardenas Lavas below. This means that
there was erosion going on after the Cardenas lava flows and before the
lowermost Nankoweap Formation was deposited. Also interesting is that
the Sixtymile Formation was apparently deposited during a period of
tectonic (earthquake) activity; the Sixtymile rocks preserve
unmistakable evidence of faulting and earthquake-triggered landslides."

Above taken from:
http://my.erinet.com/~jwoolf/gc_rocks.html

You don't think "vast amounts of time" are needed for this to occur? How
long does it take to lithify thousands of feet of sediments? How long
would it take to tilt those blocks WITHOUT HEATING them noticeably (most
of these rocks show little or no evidence of metamorphism)? How long
would it take to erode them almost flat again? What is your alternative
explanation that includes ALL the evidence? (And one big flood won't cut
it. If there was a huge outflow of water over those tilted blocks, they
wouldn't be eroded nearly flat, there would be differential erosion as
softer sediments were cut more deeply than harder sediments.)

How long would it take the hundreds of feet of lava to be deposited and
cooled and then eroded? The Cardenas Lavas are interleaved with
sandstones and show evidence of erosion between lava flows. What's your
explanaton for this? See:

http://www.rockhounds.com/grand_hikes/geology/cardenas_lava.shtml

>
> > Where's _your_ data?
>
> Exactly what data do you want?

Some objective definition of and evidence for what you're talking about.
Saying, "Hey, it looks flat to me," isn't exactly compelling.

Geologists are aware that sediments are deposited in horizontal,
_approximately_ flat layers. They are aware that these layers are
sometimes continuous and sometimes discontinuous. They have spent a
couple of hundred years and millions of man hours investigating the
actual rocks and processes of deposition in the field; conducting
experiments in laboratories; and writing, publishing and presenting
their findings and theories to their peers.

Why, after apparently only looking at a few pictures, are you claiming
that there are 'crisp contact layers' and that 'the hills are chopped
off as cleanly as if they had been removed by a leveling bulldozer' as
though this was significant?

>
> > You _do_ realize that it only takes a few examples showing eroded and
> > refilled canyons, tilted & eroded blocks of sedimentary rock, petrified
> > layers of tree stumps stacked on top of each other WITH their roots
> > intact in the paleosoils, cooled and exposed igneous intrusions, etc.,
> > to disprove a young earth and a world-wide flood, don't you?
>
> I disagree. The few examples that are present could represent very
> rapid erosive processes from rapid water runnoff and huge seismic
> activities.

Actually, the examples I've given above CANNOT be explained by rapid
water runnoff and huge seismic activities. You DO need to find out a
good deal more about what such floods and seismic events would look like
before making ridiculous claims like this. There is evidence of huge
catastrophes left on the earth (the Missoula Floods/Washington
Scablands, the Deccan eruptions, the K-T event, etc). Geological science
does have evidence and explanations for these and other events. There is
NO evidence that _most_ of the geologic column was formed by sudden,
violent catastrophe(s).

> The petrified layers of trees that you speak of, such as
> are found at Yellowstone National Park, do not show what you say they
> show. Their "roots" are broken off so that the roots that remain are
> very short. Their branches are likewise missing as well as much of
> their bark. Also, tree ring analysis has shown that they lived at the
> same time. Also, the "soil" is water sorted.

I don't know where you're getting your information on the Yellowstone
and other paleoforest remains, but it's incorrect. See following for
more info on Yellowstone and other fossil forests:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/polystrate/yellowstone.html

http://www.geocities.com/earthhistory/forests.htm

http://www.aqd.nps.gov/grd/geology/paleo/surveys/yell_survey/intro.htm

>
> I will have to look more closely into your other examples, but so far,
> it seems to me that you have not proven your point.
>
> Thanks again for your time and the presentation of your ideas. They
> have certainly been quite helpful to me.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Sean

I hope you are looking at the data you're getting with an open mind.
Scientists aren't stupid and they aren't blinded (entirely or even
mostly) by preconceived ideas. Think about this, would you accept the
claims of alternative medicine practitioners without evidence, even if
you _wanted_ to believe their claims? Would you prescribe a treatment
for a patient where all the evidence shows that it doesn't work? Don't
doctors expect objective, scientific methodology be used to determine if
a treatment is efficacious or not? Why would you expect less from
geologists?

[Stanley Friesen]

jun...@adelphia.net (June) wrote:
>> Sean

>
>FWIU, have read about and have seen, there is almost every type of
>interface you can imagine between strata from smooth, interleaved
>transitions with no break in deposition to buried islands and hills to
>buried, eroded canyons to great, angular unconformities (which are
>evidence of massive erosion occuring over great lengths of time) to huge
>tracts and blocks of sedimentary rock layers that has been uplifted and
>fractured, compressed, folded, spindled and mutilated. I can find
>references for all of these. I can take you out and _show_ you many of
>these horizons within a few hundred miles of my home in Southern
>California.

I rather like the examples of canyons that were refilled and then
re-eroded. Rather weird to see a cliff made of old canyon fill
conglomerate.

>
>You _do_ realize that it only takes a few examples showing eroded and
>refilled canyons, tilted & eroded blocks of sedimentary rock, petrified
>layers of tree stumps stacked on top of each other WITH their roots
>intact in the paleosoils, cooled and exposed igneous intrusions, etc.,
>to disprove a young earth and a world-wide flood, don't you?

Probably not. He doesn't seem to understand integrating evidence from
multiple sources.

[Stanley Friesen]

Sean...@juno.com (Sean Pitman M.D.) wrote:
>

>Exactly. I agree. However, the general rule is flatness and crisp
>contact zones.

No it isn't. It may be a general rule for some marine sediments and
certain types of terrestrial sediments. But *every* significant
riparian formation I am aware of has preserved internal relief between
layers. Many have major ravines and the like. Often the top and/or the
bottom of such a formation shows significant local relief. This is so
usual it is hardly worth mentioning.

>> You _do_ realize that it only takes a few examples showing eroded and
>> refilled canyons, tilted & eroded blocks of sedimentary rock, petrified
>> layers of tree stumps stacked on top of each other WITH their roots
>> intact in the paleosoils, cooled and exposed igneous intrusions, etc.,
>> to disprove a young earth and a world-wide flood, don't you?
>
>I disagree. The few examples that are present could represent very
>rapid erosive processes from rapid water runnoff and huge seismic
>activities.

Nope. The form and structure and relationships seen are totally
inconsistent with catastrophic deposition. This has been known since
Cuvier and Lyell, if not earlier.

In the Grand Canyon wall alone there are *thousands* of feet of sediment
on top of a major unconformity. Some of this sediment is shale and
mudstone, which *cannot* form rapidly due to basic physics. (And
biogenic limestones may take even *longer* to form). And note, the
Grand Canyon is simply one of the more spectacular examples of a type of
situation found all over the world - after all that is how Cuvier and
Lyell figured out the Earth was quite old indeed.

[Sean Pitman M.D.]

June,

I don't have enough time to make full reply to your interesting
comments. However, I will give a brief reference to see what you
think. It is in reponse to the following:

> I don't know where you're getting your information on the Yellowstone
> and other paleoforest remains, but it's incorrect. See following for
> more info on Yellowstone and other fossil forests:
>
> http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/polystrate/yellowstone.html
>
> http://www.geocities.com/earthhistory/forests.htm
>
> http://www.aqd.nps.gov/grd/geology/paleo/surveys/yell_survey/intro.htm

Your links actually support much of what I mentioned, to include loss
of branches and bark. What might solve the entire problem however, is
a very interesting experiment done by Michael Arct for his PhD
disertation. Dr. Arct sampled fourteen fossil trees at different
levels in a twenty-three foot section of the Yellowstone formations.
Analysis showed that all fourteen trees matched and that ten of them
died at the same time. The other four trees died seven, four, three,
and two years before the other ten died. I find this quite
interesting. The tree rings of trees from different levels matched
each other. What is the explanation for this? Are there any other
such studies done that discount this experiment or its findings?

Ref: Michael J. Arct, Dendroecology in the fossil forests of the
Specimen Creek area, Yellowstone National Park, Ph.D. Dissertation,
Loma Linda University, 1991; Dissertation Abstracts International
53–06B:2759, 1987–1991.

Sincerely,

Sean

[Rodjk]

Sean...@juno.com (Sean Pitman M.D.) wrote in message news:<fd67d42a.02100...@posting.google.com>...

> June,
>
> I don't have enough time to make full reply to your interesting
> comments. However, I will give a brief reference to see what you
> think. It is in reponse to the following:
>
> > I don't know where you're getting your information on the Yellowstone
> > and other paleoforest remains, but it's incorrect. See following for
> > more info on Yellowstone and other fossil forests:
> >
> > http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/polystrate/yellowstone.html
> >
> > http://www.geocities.com/earthhistory/forests.htm
> >
> > http://www.aqd.nps.gov/grd/geology/paleo/surveys/yell_survey/intro.htm
>
> Your links actually support much of what I mentioned, to include loss
> of branches and bark.

Sigh - another creationist turns to the usual games.
No matter the evidence, it supports him.
You will have to take him to the GC and lead him around for him to
understand, and two days later he will twist the story.

Then, just in case some one may begin to catch on, the creathionist
hurries up and changes the subject, like so:

> What might solve the entire problem however, is
> a very interesting experiment done by Michael Arct for his PhD
> disertation. Dr. Arct sampled fourteen fossil trees at different
> levels in a twenty-three foot section of the Yellowstone formations.
> Analysis showed that all fourteen trees matched and that ten of them
> died at the same time. The other four trees died seven, four, three,
> and two years before the other ten died. I find this quite
> interesting. The tree rings of trees from different levels matched
> each other. What is the explanation for this? Are there any other
> such studies done that discount this experiment or its findings?
>
> Ref: Michael J. Arct, Dendroecology in the fossil forests of the
> Specimen Creek area, Yellowstone National Park, Ph.D. Dissertation,
> Loma Linda University, 1991; Dissertation Abstracts International
> 53–06B:2759, 1987–1991.

Still waiting for an honest, informed creationist.
Rodjk

>
> Sincerely,
>
> Sean

[sds]

"June" <jun...@adelphia.net> wrote in message
news:1fjdfuv.1csh28lzg3rkyN%jun...@adelphia.net...

> Sean Pitman M.D. <Sean...@juno.com> wrote:
>
> > jun...@adelphia.net (June) wrote in message
> news:<1fjcfhf.180izftwsjgt6N%jun...@adelphia.net>...
> > > Sean Pitman M.D. <Sean...@juno.com> wrote:

[snip]

> > The petrified layers of trees that you speak of, such as
> > are found at Yellowstone National Park, do not show what you say they
> > show. Their "roots" are broken off so that the roots that remain are
> > very short. Their branches are likewise missing as well as much of
> > their bark. Also, tree ring analysis has shown that they lived at the
> > same time. Also, the "soil" is water sorted.
>
> I don't know where you're getting your information on the Yellowstone
> and other paleoforest remains, but it's incorrect. See following for
> more info on Yellowstone and other fossil forests:
>
> http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/polystrate/yellowstone.html
>
> http://www.geocities.com/earthhistory/forests.htm
>
> http://www.aqd.nps.gov/grd/geology/paleo/surveys/yell_survey/intro.htm
>

[snip]

Thanks for the links, June. I read 'em, and thought I'd return the favor :)

For anyone who hasn't see this, Jonathan Sarfati (AiG) has this to say about
those petrified trees:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4109.asp

For those who can't stomach reading more than a bare minimum from AiG's
site, scroll about 1/4 of the way down to the list of "Problems with the
long-age scenario" and just concentrate on those bullets.

I'm curious what some of you think about his statements there. And please,
I already know what most of you think in general of AiG and Sarfati.
Comments refuting his claims are what I'm after - not name calling. Thanks.

Also, a couple of questions of my own - if we find even a few transported
trees at different levels, and they seem to have grown more or less
simultaneously, based on the similarity of their tree ring patterns, how do
we explain this in a way that is consistent with hundreds or thousands of
years between forests?

And does a large and full root structure necessarily indicate growth in
situ? Couldn't a stream or river erode its bank to the point where it
literally washes the ground out from beneath the surrounding trees? The
trees would then be transported with a lot of their roots in place. Some
tree roots are quite tough and might withstand the journey intact, ISTM.
Crazy?

Thanks.

[sds]

"Rodjk" <rjk...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:dbe402.021002...@posting.google.com...

> Sean...@juno.com (Sean Pitman M.D.) wrote in message
news:<fd67d42a.02100...@posting.google.com>...
> > June,
> >
> > I don't have enough time to make full reply to your interesting
> > comments. However, I will give a brief reference to see what you
> > think. It is in reponse to the following:
> >
> > > I don't know where you're getting your information on the Yellowstone
> > > and other paleoforest remains, but it's incorrect. See following for
> > > more info on Yellowstone and other fossil forests:
> > >
> > > http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/polystrate/yellowstone.html
> > >
> > > http://www.geocities.com/earthhistory/forests.htm
> > >
> > > http://www.aqd.nps.gov/grd/geology/paleo/surveys/yell_survey/intro.htm
> >
> > Your links actually support much of what I mentioned, to include loss
> > of branches and bark.
>
> Sigh - another creationist turns to the usual games.
> No matter the evidence, it supports him.
> You will have to take him to the GC and lead him around for him to
> understand, and two days later he will twist the story.
>
>
> Then, just in case some one may begin to catch on, the creathionist
> hurries up and changes the subject, like so:

Why do you think Arct's tree ring analysis is off this subject?

> > What might solve the entire problem however, is
> > a very interesting experiment done by Michael Arct for his PhD
> > disertation. Dr. Arct sampled fourteen fossil trees at different
> > levels in a twenty-three foot section of the Yellowstone formations.
> > Analysis showed that all fourteen trees matched and that ten of them
> > died at the same time. The other four trees died seven, four, three,
> > and two years before the other ten died. I find this quite
> > interesting. The tree rings of trees from different levels matched
> > each other. What is the explanation for this? Are there any other
> > such studies done that discount this experiment or its findings?
> >
> > Ref: Michael J. Arct, Dendroecology in the fossil forests of the
> > Specimen Creek area, Yellowstone National Park, Ph.D. Dissertation,
> > Loma Linda University, 1991; Dissertation Abstracts International

> > 53-06B:2759, 1987-1991.

[Dirk Murcray]

Sean...@juno.com (Sean Pitman M.D.) wrote in message news:<fd67d42a.02092...@posting.google.com>...
> Stuart
>
> > > "I also have some questions concerning the various layers themselves.
> > > Consider, for example, the Jurassic layer in your first figure. The
> > > various sedimentary lines that form the Jurassic are very much in a
> > > U-shape. I have seen similar shapes and even hair pin turns in such
> > > sedimentary layers. It is interesting to me that these hair-pin turns
> > > have no evidence of rock fracture. If you try to bend a solid rock,
> > > it simply won't bend. It will break and crumble first. How do you
> > > explain the absence of fractures in such hair-pin turns. "
> >
> > Well Mr. Pitman, you wouldn't know would you?
>
> LOL - That's why I asked... Dr. Weinstein.

Two words: Plasticity and time. Strata do not require heat to
seriously deform without fracturing if the tectonic forces are
sufficiently gradual.

>
> > And clearly you went through a
> > great deal of effort to find out.
>
> Not much at all really... just a simple question.
>
> > Does the expression "solid state creep" mean anything to you, Mr Pitman?
>
> Yes, but I don't see good evidence for a heating event in these
> "creeping" layers. Also, juding from the absence of non-warped
> layers, the warping itself must have happened fairly rapidly... before
> other sedements could accumulate. Or, is this just another silly
> thought of mine? Could be! That's why I'm asking it. If you never
> ask silly questions, you won't get very far.
>
> > Under pressure and slow strain rates, you can make rock do all sorts of neat
> > things, especially if you heat them up a little as well.
>
> Yeah, especially if you heat them up a little. Where is the evidence
> for this heat you speak of? How long does it take for a 5 foot slab
> of solid rock to warp into a perfect hairpin loop without a single
> fracture?
>
> > No, Mr. Pitman, there is no difficulty in explaining what you observe. In
> > addition, there are many places where indeed fracture does accompany folding.
>
> I personally haven't seem many of these fractured folds. Do you have
> a link to some pictures of such formations? Also, do you have some
> references to rock slabs being folded in real time without cracking?
> How much heat is required? I may be ignorant and you may have all the
> answers... so why shouldn't someone who is ignorant like me ask
> someone like you for the answers?
>
> > We'll just chalk up those remarks to general ignorance.
>
> LOL - Touchy touchy! ; ) That's ok. It is to be expected. You know
> all the answers so I'm sure my questions are quite humerous from your
> perspective. I know if I were you I would just rub it in as much as I
> possibly could. It's always easy to do when you know all the answers.

>
>
> > Stuart
> > Dr. Stuart A. Weinstein
> > Ewa Beach Institute of Tectonics
> > "To err is human, but to really foul things up
> > requires a creationist"
>

> Sincerely,
>
> Sean Pitman M.D.

[Glenn Morton]

Sean Pitman M.D. <Sean...@juno.com> wrote in message
news:fd67d42a.0209...@posting.google.com...

Sean, you don't listen do you? We have already documented channelized
erosion. That isn't flat. Look at the seismic section on
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/appalach1.jpg and you will see erosion whichh
isn't flat. There are hills, valleys in the eroded surface. This is from the
Appalachian area.

Here is the explanation:
The line was one shot by Texaco along the Alabama/Mississippi border just NE
of Meridian, Mississippi. The reference is A. W. Bally, _Seismic Expression
of Structural Styles, Vol. 3, AAPG Studies in Geology Series, #15,, p.
3.4.1-82. It shows a wonderful example of why slow sedimentation must be the
rule and presents a big problem for the global flood. I apologize for the
size (418 kb) but it was necessary in order to show the detail I wanted to
show. A word about seismic. The black peaks and grey troughs are the
reflections of sound off of various rock layers which are in the earth. By
reflecting the sound, we can produce a picture, like this, of what the earth
looks like under one's feet. The picture is about 20 km of seismic data. It
can be seen that the valley in the unconformity is about 3 km wide. The
thrust block is about 16 km or 9 miles long.
>
At the top of the section are the sediments of the Atlantic coastal plains.
They are flatish-lying dipping slightly to the SE. They are about 3500 feet
thick and consist mostly of sands and shales. They lie on top of a major
unconformity which separates the Paleozoic Appalachian sediments from the
Atlantic Coastal plain sediments. Below the unconformity is the Paleozoic
sediments which consist not only of sands and shales but also very thick
piles of carbonate and dolomite. dolomite. They are around 18,500 feet
thick. This is determined by the velocity of sound in those sediments. Rocks
in the Paleozoic are almost always faster than rocks in the younger Mesozoic
and Mesozoic rocks in general are even faster than those from the Tertiary.
>
If you look below the unconformity you will find a thrust fault having
thrusted the paleozoic sediments over on top of themselves Bed a is marked
on both sides of the thrust fault and one can clearly see that it is over
thrusted on top of itself. The friction of the thrust plane against the
upper part of the thrust caused the sediments to be folded. The fold was
then eroded. Since bed A to the right is buried by 1.3 seconds of Paleozoic
sediment (approximately 10,000 feet), yet it intersects the unconformity
where it is covered by NO Paleozoic sediment, this means that 10,000 feet of
sediment was eroded from the point marked 'hill'. If you look at the
sediments just under the unconformity on the right and move to the left you
will see layer after layer erosionally truncated by the unconformity until
you get to hill where bed A is at the surface of the unconformity.
>
Where I marked a hill, If you look at the unconformity, you will see that it
drops down at that point. the flat reflectors above are clearly onlapping
the unconformable surface against the hill. The valley was eroded into the
underlying Paleozoic sediments PRIOR to the deposition of the Mesozoic
sediment. If you look just to the right of the hill, under the word valley,
above the unconformity you will see a black reflector which runs into the
hill to the left and then into the unconformity on the right. The
relationship between this reflector and the unconformity shows that the
valley to the right of the hill was infilled in a rather gentle way
otherwise the sediments would be chaotic. This valley was probably an arm of
the ocean at one point because the sediments that fill it are marine as are
all the Atlantic Coastal Plain sediments.
>
After the Mesozoic sediments were deposited, the entire area was slightly
tilted to the SE.
>
The sequence of events cause great problems for the concept of a global
flood. Global flood advocates always say that fossilization can only occur
during catastrophic events such as the flood. Well there are fossiliferous
Paleozoic sediments below the unconformity as well as above. Thus the flood
advocate must hold that all the sediment in this picture is from the flood.
This means that during the flood 18,500 feet of Paleozoic sediment must have
been deposited. It must then have hardened. Why? Because of the way the
thrusting deformed the rocks. This is not a soft-sediment type of
deformation. The upper thrust block moved as a solid block. If the sediments
had been soft, this couldn't have happened. Soft ooze and mush won't
transmit forces for 9 miles. Assuming that the Paleozoic constituted half of
the flood's time, then in 6 months we must deposit 18,500 feet of sediment.
This is a rate of 102 feet per day. There are slow-moving invertebrate
fossils at the bottom of the Appalachian Paleozoic as well as at the top.
All sorts of stationary shell-fish are found throughout the Paleozoic
strata. Why everything wasn't at the bottom of the pile, after deposition of
the first 102 feet on the first day, I can't comprehend. A further problem
is the burrows which are found throughout the entire 18,500 feet of
sediment. One must have exceptionally rapid burrowers in order to thoroughly
burrow 102 feet of strata a day. That is enough sediment to cover a 10 story
building each day. Next time you drive down the road, look at a ten story
building and imagine it covered in sediment in one day and thoroughly
burrowed by thousands of animals. Burrowed in such a fashion where the
excavated sediments make a pile around the burrow which are then covered by
the next layer which is a different lithology.
>
After the deposition of 18,500 feet of strata, and it's hardening (it takes
lots of time for shales to de-water, yet we see no mega water escape
structures in this sedimentary pile either), we must then have the time to
thrust the paleozoic section creating huge mountains (the Appalachians).
After this, we must have time for the erosion of 10,000 feet of HARDENED
sediment, which then becomes the unconformity surface. Then we must cover,
in a gentle way, the entire area with 3,500 feet of Mesozoic sediment. This
is a rate of 19 feet a day assuming that the Mesozoic here represented 180
days of flood deposition. One could hardly say that 19 feet a day of
sedimentation is 'gentle'. 19 feet of sediment where I live would nearly
cover my 2 story house.

I don't see how to explain this in a global flood/young-earth scenario.

[Glenn Morton]

Sean Pitman M.D. <Sean...@juno.com> wrote in message
news:fd67d42a.02100...@posting.google.com...

> June,
>
> I don't have enough time to make full reply to your interesting
> comments. However, I will give a brief reference to see what you
> think. It is in reponse to the following:
>
> > I don't know where you're getting your information on the Yellowstone
> > and other paleoforest remains, but it's incorrect. See following for
> > more info on Yellowstone and other fossil forests:
> >
> > http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/polystrate/yellowstone.html
> >
> > http://www.geocities.com/earthhistory/forests.htm
> >
> > http://www.aqd.nps.gov/grd/geology/paleo/surveys/yell_survey/intro.htm
>
> Your links actually support much of what I mentioned, to include loss
> of branches and bark. What might solve the entire problem however, is
> a very interesting experiment done by Michael Arct for his PhD
> disertation. Dr. Arct sampled fourteen fossil trees at different
> levels in a twenty-three foot section of the Yellowstone formations.
> Analysis showed that all fourteen trees matched and that ten of them
> died at the same time. The other four trees died seven, four, three,
> and two years before the other ten died. I find this quite

I have read both Arct's master's thesis and his dissertation. I have several
problems with the data he presented. He claimed to have found the same
signature in the rings of fossil trees at Specimen Ridge on several
different levels. For those who don't know, a signature is a unique pattern
of ring thicknesses which should represent a unique set of climatologic
stresses on the trees. If true, this would rule out the view that the trees
grew in place and were covered by volcanic ash. It would be unlikely that
the same unique pattern of climatologic events would occur in successive
forests.

Here are the issues I have with what he has done. First his signature
series is too short and he admits it.

"Although the use of short ring sequences represents a slight
departure from standard dendrochronological procedure it would be
justifiable if it permitted accuracy."~Michael J. Arct,
Dendrochronology in the Yellowstone Fossil Forests, M.A. Thesis,
Loma Linda University, 1979 p. 5

Short sequences (or short correlations) simply can't provide accuracy. We
use correlations with seismic to tell which layer is which across a fault
and the shorter the sequence the more likely an error. As we will se, the
length of his signatures are just a few rings wide.

Secondly, his signatures are due to non-standard causes:

"A signature as defined by Ferguson (1970) is 'a short,
easily identifiable sequence of large and small rings.'
Signatures from various time periods of the long southwest
chronology were often memorized by workers permitting them to
instantaneously date wood from Indian ruins. Signatures are
usually the result of extremes in annual precipitation over
several years time, but it appears that the Yellowstone signature
is a result of a pronounced sensitivity to the intra-annual
availability of water as recorded in young trees."~Michael J.
Arct, Dendrochronology in the Yellowstone Fossil Forests, M.A.
Thesis, Loma Linda University, 1979 p. 56

Instead of being signatures which occur over several rings growth, his are
within one year's growth. This is not as good a signature set.

I think most importantly for the global flood view of this deposit is that
EVEN IF THE ARCT'S SIGNATURE IS VALID,THE TREES DIDN'T DIE IN THE SAME YEAR!

Arct writes:
"Although bark was detected on five trees, the bark ring was
not always the same number of rings from the YSC Signature set.
This occurrence indicated either the trees did not die in the
same year, or several of the ring series had problems with
missing increments, or deceptive false rings."~Michael J. Arct,
Dendrochronology in the Fossil Forests of the Specimen Creek Area
Yellowstone National Park, Ph. D. Dissertation, Loma Linda
University, Dec. 1991 p. 38

between the rings that he describes. There is little correlation. Here is
the data:
***begin data****
The signature consists of a pattern of intra-annular bands which
occur over a 5 year period. The signature consists of a triplet
of intra-annual bands in the first year, an intrannual doublet
late in the third year, and an intra-annual band in the middle on
the summer of the 5th year.

Deviations from pattern:

First year triplet: The "signature" on samples YSC002, YSC010,
YSC013, YSC015 appeared to be at different times during the ring year. (p.
20)

YSC002 middle of triplet is a doublet on YSC010,013,015 it is
singlet

YSC015 outer mark of triplet is doublet. Others it is singlet

5th year singlet: YSC006 singlet is not in center of big cells
others it is in the middle of the big cells.

The outermost signature singlet on YSC013 is the inner of a
doublet but the outer ring of a doublet on on YSC010

The relative variations in ring size shows no correlation between
the samples

Ring widths on YSC002 in millimeters
YSC001
1.2,3.24,2.28,1.76,1.76
YSC002
3.2,4.3,3.2,.9,1.05

YSC006
2.84,7.3,4.76,2.23,2.46

YSC007
2.46,7.2,4.5,2.69,3.38

YSC009
4.15,5.07,4.15,3.53,2.61

YSC010
3.0,6.125,4.0,2.375,1.875

YSC013
5.54,5.54,5.69,3.53

YSC015
6.0,7.3,10.8,4.0

ratios normalized to first ring
YSC001
1.0,2.7,1.9,1.46,1.46

YSC002
1.0,1.34,1.0,.28,.32

YSC006
1.0,2.57,1.67,.785,.86

YSC007
1.0,2.92,1.82,1.09,1.37

YSC009
1.0, 1.22,1.0,.85,.62

YSC010
1.0,2.04,1.33,.8,,625

YSC013
1.0,1.0,1.054,.65

YSC015
1.0,1.21,1.8,.66

Little correlation
~Michael J. Arct, Dendrochronology in the Fossil Forests of the
Specimen Creek Area Yellowstone National Park, Ph. D.
Dissertation, Loma Linda University, Dec. 1991 p. 18, 20
***end data***

I am not convinced by Arct's data or of his conclusions but I did find the
work fascinating.

> interesting. The tree rings of trees from different levels matched
> each other.

Bull roar!!! They didn't.

What is the explanation for this? Are there any other
> such studies done that discount this experiment or its findings?
>
> Ref: Michael J. Arct, Dendroecology in the fossil forests of the
> Specimen Creek area, Yellowstone National Park, Ph.D. Dissertation,
> Loma Linda University, 1991; Dissertation Abstracts International

> 53-06B:2759, 1987-1991.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Sean
>

[sds]

"Dirk Murcray" <dmur...@wwcc.cc.wy.us> wrote in message
news:ceb080d7.02100...@posting.google.com...

> Sean...@juno.com (Sean Pitman M.D.) wrote in message
news:<fd67d42a.02092...@posting.google.com>...
> > Stuart
> >
> > > > "I also have some questions concerning the various layers
themselves.
> > > > Consider, for example, the Jurassic layer in your first figure. The
> > > > various sedimentary lines that form the Jurassic are very much in a
> > > > U-shape. I have seen similar shapes and even hair pin turns in such
> > > > sedimentary layers. It is interesting to me that these hair-pin
turns
> > > > have no evidence of rock fracture. If you try to bend a solid rock,
> > > > it simply won't bend. It will break and crumble first. How do you
> > > > explain the absence of fractures in such hair-pin turns. "
> > >
> > > Well Mr. Pitman, you wouldn't know would you?
> >
> > LOL - That's why I asked... Dr. Weinstein.
>
> Two words: Plasticity and time. Strata do not require heat to
> seriously deform without fracturing if the tectonic forces are
> sufficiently gradual.

In my state of ignorance, this is what's been puzzling me. The "gradual"
forces. IOW, it seems we need a large pressure within the rock which acts
over a long time to cause the creep. It's difficult for *me* to imagine such
a pressure of sufficient magnitude remaining within some bounds for millions
of years. And it seems it would have to remain within some bounds because if
the pressure becomes too great, the rock fractures, and if the pressure goes
away, the creep stops. How can this pressure remain uniform to any degree
for millions and millions of years (is this the right time frame?) in spite
of all the geologic processes that are supposedly ongoing (e.g., translation
of tectonic plates)?

Also, the creep itself - supposedly we have lab experiments which support
the idea that rock will creep. But are these experiments done in both
tension and compression? To get a bend or fold in the rock layer, the
outside radius will be stretched (tension) while the inside radius will be
compressed. Again, I plead ignorance. I can see how compressive creep
might occur, but to "stretch" a rock really "stretches" my imagination. Do
rocks "stretch" in the lab?

Thanks

[sds]

"Glenn Morton" <glenn....@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:angnba$j90$1...@knossos.btinternet.com...

Two thoughts about your assessment of Arct's analysis.

First, concerning the accuracy problems with using a small (5 year?)
pattern - it seems that even if this is relatively inaccurate between a
couple of trees, if we find this pattern in *several* trees, the likelihood
of it being an accident is lessened substantially. I don't know how many
trees he claims exhibited the pattern.

Second, concerning the trees not all dying in the same year - wouldn't the
forest floor be littered with dead trees before the onset of the
hypothetical flood? Couldn't some of these trees be transplanted along with
recently uprooted ones? Of course, the trees on the forest floor would begin
to decay immediately after they died and might not last a long time, but how
much difference are we talking about here? Granted, some might not make it
but a year or two, but there are some species that could easily last a
decade or two.

[June]

sds <s...@mp3.com> wrote:

I"ve been trying to research this & will respond more in depth later. I
just wanted to point out that Dr. Arct is apparently still studying the
dendrochronology of these petrified trees (at least as reported in the
1998-1999 season permits for Yellowstone & maybe in '99-2000 & later)
and he STILL hasn't published anything in scientific journals (that I
can find). I can't find a reference in any of the creationist journals
either. If he had something substantive, I would think he would have
gotten it published by now, don't you? It's been more than 10 years
since his PhD dissertation on the subject. The only way to get his peers
(other geologists) to vett his findings and either confirm or disprove
them, he has to publish. That's the way science works.

[snip]